In 1780, the French writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier compiled an essay comparing his home city of Paris, and its European neighbour, London. "Neighbour and rival, inevitably London furnishes the ...

Liss's 18th-century London is one that James Bond would have felt at home in. The action is fast and full of surprises -- so many, in fact, that the suspension of disbelief is sometimes sustained ...