Among OthersIt's the other people around you, says Michael Frayn, who make you what you are. So he would like to say a brief word, looking back on life from his ninetieth year, about a few of the people who have formed his own particular world. Some were friends; some not; some more than friends. Some have had a profound effect; some only a passing one. Some you may know yourself; some you certainly won't. Some he now wonders if he ever really knew himself. The

waiting until the time was right to unleash his new army and annihilate Vahlzi for good

Her writing lifts the soul' Evening Standard Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge

in the matter of a missing heiress

Death and destruction will bar her way

and all he'd ever really wanted when he grew up was to be a fireman

and on one day in the summer of 1920

Keeper of the King's Peace

'Great fun - clever plot

where a rock 'n' roll band came to symbolise resistance to the regime

he is tasked with investigating the death of King Henry VI in the Tower of London

Shakespeare must face implacable forces who believe themselves above the law: men and women who kill without compunction

during the tumultuous period of the 1930s and 1940s from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to the end of the Second World War