Showing results by narrator "Richard Attlee" in All Categories

In 1928, Eric and Mabel Smith arrived from India to take over the lonely parish of Borley on the northern border of Essex. When they moved into Borley Rectory, Mrs Smith made a gruesome discovery in a cupboard: a human skull. Soon the house was electric with ghosts. Within three months, the Smiths had abandoned it and the Rectory became notorious as the ‘most haunted house in England’.

1670, Kyiv. A German convert to Russian Orthodoxy is writing history. Not merely a book about history: he believes that his work will save his beloved Kyiv from the scourge of Catholicism. Innokenty Gizel has never been to Moscow, but he wants to create the illusion that Kyiv shares a common history with the seat of the Orthodox Church. The story he comes up with - a fantasy - pleases Moscow's rulers so much that it will remain their official line all the way into the 21st century.

The event was created by a group of Frenchmen in 1923 and remains uniquely compelling to spectators, to the major motor manufacturers who continue to see it as an opportunity for priceless publicity, as well as to drivers hoping to add their names to its distinguished roll of honour. Between the wars, those manufacturers included Bugatti, Bentley and Alfa Romeo. Subsequently, Ferrari, Jaguar, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ford, Porsche, Audi and Toyota have all been serial winners, guaranteeing the continuation of ferocious inter-marque rivalry.

On 17 April 1984, as demonstrators gathered outside the Libyan embassy in London, two gunmen lay in wait inside. At 10.18 a.m. automatic gunfire rained down on the protestors and WPC Yvonne Fletcher fell, mortally wounded. As his friend lay dying, PC John Murray made her a promise that he would not rest until those responsible had been brought to justice. Thirty-seven years would pass before he was able to fulfil that undertaking.

2024 marks both the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Churchill himself. This book brings together General Lord Dannatt, one of Britain's most respected contemporary military leaders, and former head of the British Army, with Allen Packwood, one of the world's foremost Churchill experts, the archivist responsible for the holdings at the landmark Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Together they take us through the decision-making for the planning and execution of D-Day.

Europe's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. Successive powers have redrawn the map of our continent, with varying degrees of success: the fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but the present shape of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945. In Borderlines, writer and political historian Lewis Baston journeys along and across key borders from west to east Europe, to explore their history.

The Bible is the world's best-known text. Yet, it is a book that never was - its original form does not exist and likely never did. What we have is the inheritance of generation after generation of Christians who have sought to hear God speak. Available in over 3,000 languages and taking innumerable forms, each version is a revelation, evolving as a reflection of its own culture and moment.

Professor Richard Fortey has been a devoted field mycologist all his life. He has rejoiced in the exuberant variety and profusion of mushrooms since reading as a boy of nuns driven mad by ergot (a fungus). Drawing on decades of experience doing science in the woods and fields, Fortey starts with the perfect ‘fungus day’ – eating ceps in Piedmont. He introduces brown rotters and the white, earthstars and death caps; fungal annuals and perennials, dung lovers and parasites, even fungi that move through the trees like mycelial monkeys.

Following the death of her mother, Corinna Ormesby has lived a quiet life in the countryside with her cantankerous Cousin Agnes. Her father's identity has been a tantalising mystery, but now at nineteen Corinna knows that finding him may be her only way to avoid marriage to the odious Mr Beech. Deciding to head to London, Corinna dons a male disguise. Travelling alone as a young woman risks scandal and danger, but when, masquerading as a youth, she is befriended by three dashing blades, Corinna now has access to the male-only world of Regency England.

A dramatic narrative of the six months leading up to President Paul von Hindenburg's decision to appoint Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Takeover brings to life the secret meetings, political manoeuvrings, and shifting loyalties involved in Hitler's rise, using contemporary sources without the advantage of historical hindsight. Historian Timothy W. Ryback illuminates just how close Hitler came to not ascending to power.

Charlotte and Perry long for summers at Cliff View, their gorgeous holiday home overlooking the turquoise waters of Pine Ridge. And now that city friends Amy and Linus have bought a property nearby, they plan lazy weeks of sun, sea and sipping rosé on Charlotte’s summerhouse veranda. A rising tide of resentment towards second-home owners is heading their way and small acts of criminal damage are escalating into something more menacing. By the end of the summer, families and friendships will be torn apart and Pine Ridge will be known for more than its sun-drenched beaches.

How do you solve your own murder before it happens? That’s the question that haunts three women. Convinced that a mysterious urban myth called the rule of three is real, they must find a way to break the curse or be doomed to die like those who came before them. But when you’re not sure if what you think is happening is even the truth, how do you know if you are actually in danger? And if you don’t know, how will you be able to protect yourself? Amy. Ila. Zoe. Death comes in threes.

Bremen, 1951. An MI6 officer, haunted by an SS atrocity, kills a Nazi war criminal in the ruins of a U-boat bunker. The German turns out to be a CIA asset being rat-lined to South America. Britain, 1947. A young cabinet minister negotiates a deal with Moscow trading Rolls-Royce jet engines for cattle fodder and wood. The fates of the two men become entwined as one rises through MI6 and the other to Downing Street where, in the mid-1970s, a secret plot unfolds on both sides of the Atlantic to overthrow the prime minister. Can MI6 officers Catesby and Bone prevent it?

London, 1940. A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he, too, is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020. Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice.

London, 1956. A generation of British Spies are haunted by the ghost of friends turned traitors. Henry Bone, a Mandarin spymaster, is convinced that a man code-named Butterfly is an aristocratic pervert whose political tastes are as ugly as his sexual preferences. Worst of all, Butterfly has the ability to identify each traitor!

Catesby is a spy with an antiestablishment chip on his shoulder. Loathed by the Americans and trusted by the Russians, he is sent to Havana and Washington to make clandestine contacts. London has authorised Catesby to offer Moscow a secret deal to break the Cuban Missile Crisis deadlock. But then Catesby meets the Midnight Swimmer, who has a chilling message for Washington.... Merging fact and fiction, sleaze and high politics, this white-knuckle thriller sees a superpower standoff played out against a backdrop of honey-trap blackmail, Mafia contracts, assassination and Vatican scandal.

In a grand old mansion in the middle of the Sussex countryside, seven people have seen more than they should. James Ritchie was looking forward to a boys' day out with his son, Wilbur—even if he was a little late picking him up from the home of his ex-wife, Anna. Annoyed by his late arrival, and competing for their son's attention, Anna leaves the two of them to their day with the promise of a roast dinner when Wilbur returns. But Anna will never see her family again. That afternoon, James and Wilbur are found dead, the victims of a double stabbing on the beach.

In this compelling investigation, Michael Smith explores the critical moment in a spy's life: that split-second decision to embrace a double life.

London, 1900. Hester Stanmore watches in disbelief as the jury declares her attacker 'not guilty', and the courtroom erupts into chaos. The man in the dock is being congratulated as if he were a hero, but she has seen the madness in his eyes when he had attacked her and left her for dead. It was only Hester's strength that allowed her to survive. Hester was determined to bring him to justice, but what would happen now? As she endeavours to pick up the pieces of her life, Hester meets the mysterious Daniel Hansen, and perhaps she will find the happy ending she justly deserves.

Packed with fresh and surprising stories, 1945: The Reckoning takes listeners on a spectacular journey from the deadly jungles of Burma through hospital ships on Indian rivers and copper mines in Formosa to the 'lost trains' of the Belsen concentration camp. As the fate of the world is decided so too is that of the British Empire and in India millions of men and women struggle to decide whether to support 'the Raj' or fight alongside the Japanese.