Young Jim diGriz has but one ambition in life

to become a master criminal, perhaps the greatest that his backwater homeworld, Bit O''Heaven, has ever seen. So that he can learn the ropes, he has to mix with the right people - or rather the wrong people. And for this kind of on-the-job training the best place to meet the worst villains is in prison. But even for a customer as slippery as Jim, getting behind bars isn''t easy.

So Jim does a bank job, very badly, with the avowed intention of getting himself nicked . . .