A breathtaking epic, the award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy spans a multitude of worlds. The second instalment, The Subtle Knife, introduces Will Parry – a young boy in search of his long-lost explorer father. Will's discovery of an extraordinary 'window in the air' near the Oxford ring road leads him out of our world and into the strange and unsettling Cittàgazze. There he meets Lyra, a girl who is herself searching for something: the secret of the mystical substance Dust. Moving back and forth through the portal, Will and Lyra join forces in their quest. As they make allies and enemies along the way, they also learn of the subtle knife. An object which many would kill to possess, the knife has incredible powers, and Will finds himself reluctantly in a fight for its possession. The three novels in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials sequence are bestsellers around the world and were dramatised for a sell-out play at the National Theatre. Northern Lights has won the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Award, the Children's Book of the Year and was made into The Golden Compass motion picture. Rey Fearon, Emma Fielding, Peter Marinker and Jack Klaff are among the cast in this gripping dramatisation.