Black arts

Elizabethan London: a teeming city of traders and thieves, courtiers and preachers, riff-raff and quality, cut-throats - and demons.

When scrunty Jack the 'Judicious Nipper' picks the wrong pocket at the Globe Theatre, he finds himself mixed up in an altogether more dangerous London than he could have imagined.

An outbreak of devil-worship has led to a wave of anti-witch fervor whipped up by the Elect, a mysterious group of Puritans recognizable by their red-stained right hands.

Rumour has it that their leader, the charismatic Nicholas Webb, wants to purge the city entirely and build a New Jerusalem.

Jack has his own reason for hating him: he watched Nicholas kill his mother. Helped by Beth Sharkwell the Thief Princess of Lambeth, Kit Morely the Intelligencer and Dr Dee the Queen's Wizard, Jack pits himself against Webb's Puritans.

But this is no straightforward struggle - for ever since his first encounter with Webb, there has been something wrong with Jack's vision.

He keeps seeing things. Demons. "Black Arts" is the first in a series of thrilling time-travel adventures, each bringing the past to glorious life, as Jack and his companions hurtle from one epic struggle to the next.