[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]
Belle and Joe travel to London in 1944, towards the end of World War II. Orphaned evacuees, they haven't had a good time of it - especially Joe, who is a sensitive child and was badly bullied. Meeting them is Uncle Griff, a kindly man, but one without much money. He is more than happy to have the children stay during the school holidays. Uncle Griff owns the ''Shop of Mechanical Marvels'' and the children love all the old things it contains. Uncle Griff hopes to restore it to profitability and bring some wonder back into London's bombed out streets. [[The Chessmaster's Secret by Mary Parker|Full Review]]
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In Latvia the conspirators meet in a rather unpleasant location, but it's their plans which matter to them. In Moscow two men delight in all the uncertainty in the Baltic. In Washington the Undersecretary is a woman, but the personal pressures on her are the same as the men in Moscow are obliged to suffer. In Stockholm three members of SÄPO, the Swedish Secret Service, know that the time has come for them to make a move. They'd talk more, but their wives would get difficult and there's a rather pleasing tart which mustn't be missed. [[Mayhem in the Archipelago by Nick Griffiths|Full Review]]
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.
Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that's how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book was born. [[ Watchwords by Philip Neal |Full Review]]