Meet Tom Kipper, Espionage Agent Extraordinaire. Born into a poor Irish family in Liverpool, Tom Kipper is now ten years old and full of mischief. A pupil at Saint Joseph's Academy ('of Hard Knocks'), he spends his days dodging Spiderlady McCann's vicious pencil and scrapping in the yeard once school's out. Well, what's life without a good smack in the kisser? The arrival of war in 1939 shakes Tom's world. Woodwork teacher Mr Schwenk has to leave, and an air raid reduces the Kippers' home to rubble. But for Tom, there are always adventures to be had, especially when he captures a real-life German pilot...