Showing results by narrator "Toby Webster" in All Categories

Most famous for his Hornblower series, iconic writer C. S. Forester tells tales of adventure like no other. This BBC radio collection features modern adaptations of five of his acclaimed novels, including The African Queen (famously adapted as an Oscar-winning film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn) and The Gun, which was turned into the hit Hollywood movie The Pride and the Passion.

Forthright and frank, Read's well-respected views on the game and its future are a must-listen for rugby fans, and his take on the myriad personalities and the peccadilloes of his teammates, coaches and opponents will be sure to surprise and delight. From the playing fields of Papakura to the summit of the sport, Read has faced every challenge head on. His life story is no exception.

On June 22, 1954, in the depth of a southern winter, teenage friends Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a park with Pauline's mother. Half an hour later the girls returned alone. Honorah Parker lay in a sea of blood on a lonely track. She had been savagely murdered. In this mesmerizing audiobook, lawyer and true-crime writer Peter Graham tells the whole story for the first time, giving a brilliant account of the murder and ensuing trial, dramatic revelations about the fates of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker after their release from prison and their strange lives today.

Whakapapa is a Maori idea which embodies our universal human need to belong. It represents a powerful spiritual belief—that each of us is part of an unbroken and unbreakable chain of people who share a sacred identity. Owen places this concept at the core of his methods to maximise a team's performance.

1866. Will Stewart is one of many who have left their old lives behind to seek their fortunes in New Zealand's last great gold rush. The conditions are hostile and the outlook bleak, but he must push on in his uncertain search for the elusive buried treasure. Rose is about to arrive on the shores of South Island when a storm hits and her ship is wrecked. Just when all seems lost she is snatched from the jaws of death by Will, who risks his life to save her. Drawn together by circumstance, they stay together by choice and for a while it seems that their stars have finally aligned.

Lena just moved to Mandalay Close. She needed a new start, since her boyfriend cheated her out of the happy-ever-after she’d believed they were always going to share. But on the day Lena moves in, letters begin to arrive for all her new neighbours. Letters that promise to expose everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets. Every house has received one - except for Lena’s. Someone clearly wants to implicate her, to ruin her new life and turn everyone against her. She’s made an enemy, but who, and why?

It's a story that began in a rickety old home on a cold June morning in 1994, where five members of a seemingly ordinary New Zealand family were gunned down. There were two suspects. One lay dead from a single bullet to the head. The other was the only survivor: David Bain. Since then, the country has asked: Who killed the Bain family? David, or his father Robin? And why?

The hour is late. The candle is low. Tomorrow I will see whether it is my friends or a ship homewards I meet. But I must finish my story for you first. My future, my descendant, my mokopuna. So begins the tale of James Pōneke - orphaned son of a chief, ardent student of English, wide-eyed survivor. All the world’s a show when you’re a living exhibit. But anything can happen to a young New Zealander - a boy between worlds, having lost his family and tribe - on the savage streets of Victorian London.

Samira is an up-and-coming TV journalist, working the nightshift at a major news channel and yearning for greater things. So when she’s offered a trip to the Middle East, with Kris, the station’s brilliant but impetuous star photographer, she leaps at the chance. In the field together, Sami and Kris feel invincible, shining a light into the darkest of corners…except the newsroom, and the rest of the world, doesn’t seem to care as much as they do. Until Kris takes the photograph.

One night in December, twenty-two year old Ted Green makes his way to Waterloo Bridge determined to end his life. Lonely, despairing and utterly hopeless, it seems the only choice to make. That same night in December, Marianne Cooper is running away from a party. Having found her boyfriend in a passionate clinch with someone else, Marianne can’t get away fast enough. But as she makes her way along London’s South Bank, a figure catches her eye on top of the bridge. Then she sees him, a man ready to jump.

Nothing in Stan Andino's regular and uneventful existence has prepared him for the moment he discovers his wife naked, except for a black apron, bleaching the lounge carpet with a sponge. A CT scan one week later explains it: Carmen has a brain tumour. As Stan and his teenage sons grapple with the diagnosis and frightening personality changes in their wife and mother, family friends Austin and Tibbie Lamb do everything possible to assist the Andinos. Then Tibbie's body is discovered at the bottom of Browns Bay cliffs. DS Ramesh Bandara and his partner are assigned to the case.

Worn down by a job he hates and a stressful family life, middle-aged, middle-class Bradley picks up a teenage escort and commits an unspeakable crime. Now she's tied up in his warehouse and he doesn't know what to do. Max is homeless, sleeping rough and barely existing - known for cadging a cigarette from anyone passing and occasionally even the footpath. Nobody really sees Max - but he has one friend, and she's gone missing. In order to find her, Max is going to have to call on some people from his past and reopen wounds that have remained unhealed for a very long time.

When a freshly mummified body is discovered at the Brighton Museum of Natural History, Detective Francis Sullivan is at a loss to identify the desiccated woman. But as Egyptian burial jars of body parts with cryptic messages attached start appearing, he realises he has a serial killer on his hands. Revenge, obsession and an ancient religion form a potent mix, unleashing a wave of terror throughout the city. Caught in a race against time while battling his own demons, Francis must fight to uncover the true identity of the Embalmer before it's too late.

Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.

After graduating university, four friends - Peter, Avery, James, and Isaac - spent a golden summer working in a vineyard. Years later, Peter is brutally murdered in Martinborough. Meanwhile, north of Auckland, the long, hot summer is over and the tourists have left Matakana wine country. A tranquil atmosphere descends, and warm autumnal winds sweep across the valleys. With the harvest due, grapes sit bursting upon the manicured vines, awaiting the pick. Then a severed hand is discovered under Avery's house.

For a commitment-phobe who's never taken a girl on a third date, Jack finds getting married to his old friend Maya pretty easy. He's a New Zealander in need of a visa to stay in the country, and she doesn't believe in marriage anyway. Simple. Maya and Jack live in wedded, sex-less bliss, until one day Jack starts to get serious with someone else.

Mr. Royston is driving his hansom through the night-time streets of Melbourne when he is hailed by a man supporting a slumped, intoxicated figure and requesting that the cabman take the unfortunate fellow home - before proceeding to drop his burden and make a rapid exit.

Anna and Will have been passing in and out of each other’s lives since they were just teenagers. Now 20 years later, Anna is married—she has a lovely house, a step daughter in university and a husband with a good job. What she doesn’t have is joy. When she runs into Will it sparks something in her, a longing for the Anna she used to be. Together they embark on a journey to find what brings them joy, to discard what doesn’t and to become the people they always wanted to be.

Single mum and Paramedic Fiona Murchison has made it her mission to protect her little boy. Her husband was a daredevil, a risk taker, with his life played out in front of the camera. But when he died, she vowed to keep her son away from the glare of the world’s media. Now her quiet and content life is about to come crashing down around her with the arrival of a new doctor in town…

Helicopter paramedic Tama James isn’t afraid of hard work, danger or putting his patients first. And he expects nothing less from his team. But when his newest recruit arrives, the bubbly and beautiful Mikayla Elliot, he’s unimpressed to discover she didn’t earn her place. She’s the superior’s daughter. So, he’ll make it his mission to show her just how tough the job really is!