Jerry Cornell is a top class secret agent. Among his many unusual attributes he is dedicated, intrepid, ice-cool in a crisis, resourceful, a master of disguise and impervious to pain. He's different to most people. He's honest - at least, to himself. He knows the truth: his trade isn't glamorous and it's hardly ever important. Getting one side to defect to the other was a PR matter and most secrets aren't worth keeping anyway. But, and these were important buts, being a secret agent is fashionable. Camp even. Above all, it offers wonderful opportunities for skiving and fiddling and marital infidelity.

Arthur Hodgkiss - alias Jewellery Jules, master gem thief - is in London, about to realise his lifelong ambition - to steal the Crown Jewels. But at the Tower of London, he is mistaken for the Chinese agent who has to pick up the stolen top secret plans for Operation Glass.

British Intelligence put their top man on the job - the suave, fearless, lady killing Jerry Cornell. And once, the Chinese realise their mistake, a mad genius and masterspy Kung Fu Tzu joins the desperate hunt.

The two play out a deadly game of bluff and counter-bluff, a battle that involves the security of the entire world, and a cast of characters - such as Lilli von Bern, femme fatale par excellence, Chief Inspector Crapper of the Yard, and the dreaded Cornells of Notting Hill.

Then the story continues and, Jerry finds a page of The Devil Rider - a comic strip about a masked fighter for justice - clutched in the dying hand of a fellow agent Jerry had never much liked anyway...

Will Jerry's skill as a secret agent, prove a match for the cut throat work of comic book publishing and the renowned powers of a fictional character?