Each of five children lucky enough to discover an entry ticket for a tour of Mr. Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory takes advantage of the situation in his or her own way.

A malfunctioning alien probe is running amok on Earth. Two detectives try to stop the killing but no one will believe their story.

A spree of brutal robberies forces Charlie Resnick to confront the darkest moment of his past It starts with five professional thieves. At their first robbery, they press a sawed-off shotgun against a bank manager's head, and leave with nearly forty thousand pounds. They repeat the trick three times, raking in nearly half a million in cash. They have yet to kill, but with each raid they come closer to taking their bounty in blood.   The Nottingham...

A scalpel-wielding maniac terrorizes a hospital staff Karen Archer understands that women who date doctors should expect tardiness. The last time she invited Tim Fletcher over, he arrived from the emergency room exhausted, and barely had time to say hello before he passed out on her bed. Tonight her patience has run out. After a bottle of wine and too much television, she gives up on Fletcher and leaves the house to find her own fun-but instead she...

Two months after she disappears, a six-year-old child is found dead Raymond Cooke is looking for revenge, not corpses. It's been six weeks since the gang of four young punks attacked him, since the one with the knife slit open his belly and left him to die on the street. After that Raymond bought a knife of his own, and has spent his nights lurking in Nottingham's worst pubs, hoping for a chance at vengeance. Instead, walking home one night, he encounters...

It's Christmas in Nottingham, and a public housing official has vanished Working at the Nottingham public housing authority is miserable, but Nancy Phelan knows that the tenants she services are worse off than her. Consider Gary James, whose family Nancy recently assigned to a new council flat. He's got two children, no work, and no heat. As Christmas approaches and his children shiver, he vents his rage at Nancy. After a two-hour wait, he smashes...

A man found bloodied in the street is the newest victim of a brutal crime spree Although the cop who finds the man in Alfreton Road describes him as "absolutely stark bollock naked," that is not quite true-he is wearing a sock. The naked man is flabby, middle-aged, and bleeding heavily, in no shape to be sprinting down the street at three in the morning. After the ER doctors patch up his stab wound, the man tells the police he was attacked by a prostitute....

A teenage thug goes to prison when a simple robbery turns bloody Nicky Snape likes robbing old people. The fifteen-year-old snatches shirts from stores, purses from his teachers, and as much money as he can lift from his mother. But for an easy score he knows no better target than the elderly. When he sneaks into the home of Eric and Doris Netherfield, his footsteps wake the old couple. With a piece of steel railing he keeps by the bed for protection,...

Sharon Ortega, an old school chum of Charlie's, hires Charlie to prove that her dead restaurant partner, David, didn't commit suicide. David's recent, keyman life insurance policy won't pay for suicide, and Sharon needs the money to keep the business going. Charlie uncovers evidence of tax fraud, high level political connections, and two distinctly different sides to David's life. Amidst a confusion of relatives, she also discovers that members of...