Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

In 1903, fishermen find a wrecked boat containing a woman, who has been badly beaten, and a young girl. In 1993, All Hallows is now a boarding school. Following his mother’s death and his father’s hasty remarriage, Lewis Tyler is banished to Dartmoor, stripped of his fashionable clothes, shorn of his long hair and left feeling more alone than ever. There he meets Isak, another lost soul, and whilst refurbishment of the dormitories is taking place, the boys are marooned up in the attic, in an old wing of the school.

Jack Havoc, jail-breaker and knife artist, is on the loose on the streets of London once again. In the faded squares of shabby houses, in the furtive alleys and darkened pubs, the word is out that the Tiger is back in town, more vicious and cunning than ever. It falls to Albert Campion to pit his wits against the killer and hunt him down through the city's November smog before it is too late.

For the first time in audio, the Cycle of Fire Trilogy, a stout and epic tale mixing sci-fi and fantasy by acclaimed author Janny Wurts. This classic fantasy trilogy follows three young people struggling to free the Stormwarden, the last of the elemental power-wielding Vaere sorcerers, so that he can battle the humanity-threatening demonkind.

When a tired old inmate is found dead in his cell, the prison is obligated to investigate and so DI Barton attends. The men he interviews have been convicted of some of the worst things a human being can do, but it appears that the death was due to natural causes. When the house of the dead man is burgled and that crime is followed by a suspicious fire, Barton desperately needs to speak to his widow, but she’s nowhere to be found. In the space of 24 hours, everyone he wants to talk to has vanished. Then he receives some post, which makes him believe he could be the next to disappear.

Meet Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth. They adore hosting seasonal events in the village of Cavendish, running their country hotel, keeping the local folklore alive and listening to the latest murder mystery on the wireless. But mysteries don’t always remain on the airwaves. James and Beth are looking forward to hosting a New Year's Eve ball, but first, they are accommodating the actors of a travelling Old West show and displaying American Indian artefacts as part of that tour.

April, 1941. Detective Chief Inspector Coburg and Sergeant Lampson are called to the former Whitechapel Road tube station when the body of a woman is discovered. Her body was found in an isolated part of the subterranean area away from the platforms currently being used as air raid shelters. She had been strangled and her body eviscerated.

Three powerful Norman lords and a Saxon thegn watch their horses competing in a race near Woodstock. When one of the riders is murdered during the race, suspicion falls on the Saxon. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are guests at Oxford Castle while they deliberate on land disputes in the area. Caught up in the murder investigation, they feel that a man has been wrongly accused and, in trying to save him from execution, get themselves immersed in a sea of malice, treachery, lust and simmering hostility.

Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he's actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren’t for this administrative error, he’d never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world. Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor—but he’ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart.

July 1794, and the streets of London are filled with rumours of revolution. Laurence Jago - clerk to the Foreign Office - is ever more reliant on the Black Drop to ease his nightmares. A highly sensitive letter has been leaked to the press, and Laurence is a suspect. Then, he discovers the body of a fellow clerk, supposedly a suicide. Blame for the leak is shifted to the dead man, but Laurence is certain both of his friend's innocence and that he was murdered.

A family in Ireland contacts Frank Craven, looking for help. Their daughter is missing, kidnapped by merciless criminals. Craven and Kane travel to Ireland to find the missing girl and become embroiled in an investigation that turns into a brutal battle across the streets of Dublin and Ireland's countryside. Jack Kane is a man on the run... a secret agency wants him dead... and he is a family's only hope of finding their kidnapped daughter.

Why do people love trains so much? Tom Chesshyre is on a mission to find the answer by experiencing the world through train travel - on both epic and everyday rail routes, aboard every type of ride, from steam locomotives to bullet trains, meeting a cast of memorable characters who share a passion for train travel. Join him on the rails and off the beaten track as he embarks on an exhilarating whistle-stop tour around the globe, on journeys on celebrated trains and railways.

The Call of the Road reveals the epic battles of all of the racing seasons since the first Tour de France, looking beyond the results to see the drama - not just on the road but within the teams and between individuals - and the politics and scandal that continue to fascinate cycle road race fans everywhere.

On a fine autumn weekend Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist and a mystery novelist. The unlucky 13th is John Foss, injured at the local train station and brought to the house to recuperate - but John is nursing a secret of his own. Soon events take a sinister turn when a painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed and a man strangled.

Delve into the clandestine world of Group 15, the covert organization also featured in the acclaimed John Milton series. Charlie Cooper, an elite Group Fifteen agent, faces a complex mission: eliminate Igor Sidorov, a security-obsessed Russian oligarch implicated in international subterfuge. The only avenue to reach the paranoid Sidorov? Through Crispin Fairweather, the owner of a small yet influential reputation management firm.

Forbidden in Victorian England, the grim and violent world of bare-knuckle fighting has gone underground. So when a headless body is found floating in the Thames, his hands “pickled” for fighting, Sergeant Cribb knows he is facing a challenge. Desperate for information, they select the young constable Henry Jago to infiltrate the gang, subjecting him to a rigorous programme of purging, pickling and training. Cribb is certain that the losing fighters are being killed or worse, so getting Jago out just in time is crucial....

Meadowland gives a unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren, the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others.

Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous – Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape.

London, 1889: After Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat became a Victorian best seller, rowing on the Thames was the great craze of 1889. When an elementary school teacher in training takes a midnight swim in the Thames and witnesses a body being dumped, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackerey are called to investigate. The duo uncover strange parallels with the enormously popular Victorian novel, but nobody will take them seriously. Following their instincts, they stick doggedly to the trail, which leads upstream to Oxford.

In 1360 Edward III issues a call to arms, as sporadic attacks by the French threaten to turn into a full-blown invasion. In Cambridge, fear of the enemy is magnified by the belief that foreign agents are lurking in the area. Tension runs ever higher as rumours and ignorance fan the flames of suspicion amid preparations for war. And then the first murder occurs - of a French scholar living in the town.

Callan wants out - out of the Section, out of the whole dirty business - but his reputation as a ruthless, ice-cold professional killer precedes him. He seems the ideal man to rescue the daughter of a radical Greek politician from her kidnappers, or so say both his former employers in the Section and his long-time enemies in the KGB. With his only trustworthy ally, the timid and often pungent Lonely, Callan sets off for Crete knowing that failure or refusing to do the job could result in his own name on one of the Section's deadly Red Files.