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A few good con men...

The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the well-meaning schemes of ivory tower social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the "Royal Legions" from a distant star kingdom in hot pursuit of an unspeakably evil and nearly all-powerful villain who was hiding somewhere on the planet.

Things went even better than they had hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized... and then the real Royal Flagship showed up. They thought they were doomed, but instead the new arrivals (who also weren't quite what they claimed to be) thought the crew had shown just the sort of initiative and ingenuity that the Interstellar Patrol was looking for. So they were inducted into the Patrol.

And that was just the beginning...

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by David Weber
• Editor's Preface - essay by Eric Flint
• Strangers to Paradise (1966) - novelette
• The Dukes of Desire (1967) - novelette
• The King's Legions (1967) - novelette
• A Question of Attitude (1967) - short story
• The Royal Road (1968) - novella
• The Nitrocellulose Doormat (1969) - novelette
• Basic (1969) - short story
• Test Ultimate (1969) - short story
• Compound Interest (1967) - short story
• Experts In the Field (1967) - short story
• The Hunch (1961) - short story
• Star Tiger (1960) - novelette
• Revolt! (1958) - novelette
• Stranglehold (1966) - short story
• Afterword - essay by Eric Flint

Vaughan Roberts and his two companions had been trapped on a crime-ridden, chaotic planet until they bamboozled the population with a gigantic hoax - which brought them to the attention of the Interstellar Patrol, who were looking for a few good con men, capable of ingenious improvisation and adept at playing dirty tricks on the bad guys. The new recruits acquitted themselves admirably, so they naturally were given more tough nuts to crack, including:

• Flummoxing an alien empire which has taken a number of human prisoners as reconnaisance for an invasion. This has a personal aspect, since the prisoners are from the planet which Roberts tricked into reforming...
• Stopping a plan by not-so-good Samaritans who are pretending to cure a planetary plague - which they introduced to the planet - with a ''miracle'' drug which creates an addiction to the same drug, which the schemers will be glad to continue supplying for ever-increasing sums...
• Not only rescuing some Patrol personnel taken hostage by fanatics who plan to execute them one at a time until their leader is released, but convincing other fanatics throughout the galaxy that the consequences of threatening anyone in the Patrol are too terrible even to think about...
• Making sure that the rightful heir to a planet's throne escapes from captivity and overthrows the usurper. This time there's a complication: Roberts may be falling for the ruler's beautiful sister...

And much more...

Table of Contents:

• The Claw and the Clock (1971) - novelette
• "Riddle Me This ... " (1972) - novelette
• The Unknown (1972) - novelette
• The Throne and the Usurper (1970) - novelette
• The Trojan Hostage (1990) - novelette
• Warlord's World (1975) - novel
• Goliath and the Beanstalk (1958) - short story
• Facts to Fit the Theory (1966) - novelette
• Cantor's War (1974) - short story
• Uplift the Savage (1968) - short story
• Odds (1977) - novelette
• The Troublemaker (1960) - short story
• Bill for Delivery (1964) - short story
• Untropy (1966) - novelette
• The Low Road (1970) - short story
• Trial by Silk (1970) - novelette
• The Operator (1971) - novelette
• While the North Wind Blows (1978) - novelette
• Leverage (1959) - short story
• The Sieve (1959) - short story
• Mating Problems (1959) - short story
• Hunger (1964) - short story
• Contrast (1964) - short story
• Afterword - essay by Eric Flint