The first book in "His dark Materials Trilogy".

When Lyra's friend Roger disappears, she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, determine to find him. The ensuing quest leads them to the bleak splendor of the North, where armoured bears rule the ice and witch queens fly through the frozen skies and where a team os scientists is conducting experiments too horrible to be spoken about.

Lyra overcomes these strange horrors, only to find something yet more perilous waiting for her - something with consequences which may even reach beyond the Northern Lights.

In the second chapter of "His Dark Materials" trilogy, Will is twelve years old and he's just killed a man.

Now he's on his own, on the run, determined to discover the truth about his father's disappearance.

Then Will steps through a window in the air into another world, and finds himself a companion - a strange, savage little girl called Lyra. Like Will, she has a mission which she intends to carry out at all costs.

But the world of Cittagazze is a strange and unsettling place. Deadly soul-eating spectres stalk its streets, while high above, the wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky. And in the mysterious Torre Degli Angeli lurks Cittagazze's most important secret- an object which people from many worlds would kill to possess...

In the third and final chapter of "His Dark Materials" Trilogy, Will is the bearer of the knife. Now, accompanied by angels, his task is to deliver that powerful, dangerous weapon to Lord Asriel - by the command of his dying father.

But how can he go loooking for Lord Asriel, when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Wiil must find Lyra, for together they ar on their way to battle, an inevitale journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...