UK security van thief ended virtually penniless in US earning $14 an hour

"Behind every great man..." giggles Maria Fletcher in Fighter's Wives – The World of MMA (Five, Thursday), and behind the facade of long blonde hair and pneumatic cleavage you might expect the scheming devices of a footballer's wife. But these women who watch their husbands getting regularly beaten to a pulp need to be clever and calculating in a different way.

She was a commercial novelist with an unfussy style that helped her sell millions

Neil Gaiman, the comic book writer, novelist and screenwriter, is to return to the series that helped launch his career with a new edition of The Sandman in time for the celebrated work’s 25th anniversary. 

This annex to his 'Dark Tower' series shows a great popular artist who shuns sentimentality

Economic Outlook Never assume August is going to be a quiet month. In the first week, we seemed to be on the verge of a financial apocalypse.

The US is limping along. And, as time goes by, the limp is becoming ever more pronounced. The rot set in long before the financial crisis

Economic outlook: Faced with the loss of fiscal sovereignty, governments could more easily sell 'local austerity' rather than 'Brussels austerity'

Economic outlook: We have been relying on a pace of economic growth which may now be beyond our reach, a sobering realisation

Economic outlook: The devaluation of the pound has had an impact. Oil prices, for example, recently hit a record in sterling terms

Fondly remembered as a TV presenter, this cropped-blonde Scot was a tough-talking broadcaster and journalist in a time of Eighties "yoof" programming, and later appeared on our screens marching up mountains, enthusing about fell walking. What few viewers suspected was that Muriel Gray had a secret life as the author of several terrific (and terrifically creepy) supernatural thrillers.

Lakes tale plunges to dark depths

If the US does not ultimately deliver austerity, it may have austerity imposed through the back door

The new behemoths bend, twist and warp prices in ways that make the control of inflation more difficult