Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

He's respected - not very respected - chief had been grumbling all the way from London, and now the speeding Alvis was well into the wild and hilly country of Derbyshire, he was more caustic than ever. When Chief Inspector Bill 'Ironsides' Cromwell accepts an invitation to spend Christmas at his sergeant's family seat, Cloon Castle, he doesn't realise the mysteries he'll encounter. First, there is a mysterious figure who leaves no footprints, despite the heavy snow.

Venice, 1468. Sosia Simeon is a lover of many men in the fabled city, though married to one she despises. On the edge of the Grand Canal, Wendelin von Speyer sets up the first printing press in Venice and looks for the book that will make his fortune. When he publishes Catullus, the poet whose unrequited love inspired the most tender and erotic poems of antiquity, a scandal is set in motion that will change all their lives forever.

Oxford University, 1271: for the first time in the university's history a college is to be purpose-built. As old buildings are pulled down, a skeleton is revealed. The skull is missing - it is clear the man has been murdered. Regent Master William Falconer deduces that the body was hidden 20 years ago.

Kirall was desperate. He was a Black Prime Dragoon, the strongest and fiercest of his kind. He was returning home after defeating the Varana when a small planet's moon triggered his Joining Heat. It shouldn't have been possible. He was right. Autumn was desperate. She was human, female, and struggling to survive. At 22, she was barely making ends meet. It's why she agreed to impersonate her roommate as a waitress for the weekend at a private party. She believed the money would change her life. She was right.

Detective Inspector Frank Elder's first case was unsolved. A dead woman, lying on a bed, immaculately dressed. The murderer was never found: free to kill again. Eight years later, Elder's estranged wife contacts him in his Cornish hideaway. Her friend's sister Claire has mysteriously disappeared. Elder reluctantly agrees to help. Then Claire is found dead, arranged with meticulous detail on her bed, and it doesn't take long for Elder to make the connection.

Yes! Old Scrooge is dead, to begin with.... In this romance sequel to Charles Dickens' beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge dies suddenly just days before Christmas. Tiny Tim, now a young man who lost his sweetheart love, Becky, battles anger and lost faith with the new loss of his best friend. Scrooge’s ghost returns to to teach Tim a much needed lesson about faith...and the real meaning of Christmas!

Born at the beginning of the 20th century, Raphael Ignatius Phoenix is determined to take his own life as the new millennium begins and he turns 100 years old. But before he ends it all, he wants to get his affairs in order, and that includes making sense of his own life. He decides to write it down, remembering the experiences, the myriad encounters and, of course, the 10 murders he committed along the way.

Few authors are as closely associated with sea stories as C. S. Forester, creator of Horatio Hornblower. In this rare venture into the short-story genre, a lawyer thinks he has formulated the perfect way to dispose of a body, but it backfires in an amusing, ironic fashion.

First published in 1911, The Innocence of Father Brown contains stories involving one of the greatest characters in the history of detective fiction: Father Brown. He is a Roman Catholic priest who has an uncanny insight into human evil. Rather than the large serial villains in, for example, Sherlock Holmes stories, the mysteries Father Brown solved were more local murders by small-town crooks, narrowing the suspect list down to those in the area of the crime.

Robert Arthur Kewdingham is an eccentric failure of a man. In middle age he retreats into a private world, hunting for Roman artefacts and devoting himself to bizarre mystical beliefs. Robert's wife, Bertha, feels that there are few things more dreadful than a husband who will persist in making a fool of himself in public. Their marriage consists of horrible quarrels, futile arguments, incessant bickering. Scarcely any friends will visit the Kewdinghams in their peaceful hometown, Shufflecester.

A married airline pilot is found dead in his London flat, surrounded by shards of glass and the shattered remains of a champagne bottle. But who was the man seen with the pilot on the concourse of Heathrow airport? Private investigator Billy Rucker joins the case at the request of the pilot's brother, a well-known Tory MP. For Rucker it's the start of a long lonely trail through the city, clutching a grainy black and white photo and a gnawing suspicion in the pit of his stomach....

It is 1827, and in the town of Redditch life is harsh for the poor. When a young serving woman is found drowned in the canal, her widowed mother believes her daughter has been murdered and appeals to the Parish Constable, Thomas Potts, for help. Physically weak and bookish by nature, Tom Potts is to many people an object of derision. But concealed behind his timid façade is intelligence, experience and a fierce passion for justice.

A tool is an object with endless possibilities. Contained within each item is the chance to create, to inspire, to repair and improve. It's no wonder that scientific studies have shown humans are hardwired to appreciate hardware. This book is a celebration of both that potential and our reverence, exploring more than 150 incredible tools, their history, their unique appeal and how they are used by creative people to make just about anything.

How a fishmonger's son from Tyneside, growing up in the 1950s with a Geordie accent, become the person who recorded more than 900 audiobooks and received an MBE from the queen in the Birthday Honours of 2017. This 'charming', 'entertaining' and 'heart-warming' memoir answers that question.

Pargeting is a highly skilled trade. And Pargeters is the name given to the Suffolk home of John Mercer in honour of Adam Woodley, the craftsman who had decorated it so lovingly. Over two generations, and throughout the turbulent years of the Civil War, Pargeters comes to stand as a symbol of unity for a household divided by conflicting political loyalties and abandoned by its menfolk. And it is the mistress of Pargeters, Sarah Woodley-Mercer, who holds the small household together in this troubled time.

When a skeleton is discovered in a deep grave at the edge of an area of woodland, the police discover that it is one of their own officers who disappeared whilst on duty some 30 years earlier. DS Harry Vicary and DI Archibald Dez have little evidence to go on, but as the investigation unfolds they meet ex-police men and women who left the force at the time of the DC’s disappearance, and did so in fear of their own safety, and who, even after all this time, are reluctant to talk.

Eleven-year-old Billy Clegg and his big sister Peggy disappear from their home in Leeds after a suspicious fire in a local mill. The owner says the children caused it by lighting fireworks on Mischief Night. Their widowed mother, Betty, badly injured in the incident, doesn't know if her children are alive or dead. She prefers to think of them as being elsewhere.

The Sykes family have lived at Fairley Terrace since their youngest daughter, Rowan, was born. Fiercely clever, Rowan finds it difficult to fit in with the other village children, so when her beloved older sister, Laurel, takes a new job and moves back home, Rowan is overjoyed. Laurel is happy to be with her family - even if she's keeping the real reason for her return to herself. It seems like she's destined to keep repeating the mistakes of her past when it comes to matters of the heart.

1894. Mr Simeon Crosby, a retired executioner, comes to Wigan with his wife and brother to give a talk on his life’s work. Whilst he has an eager following, there are also many people who strongly object to Crosby’s profession and do not wish his melancholy shadow to be cast over their town. Protests have been organised and threats have been made. Detective Sergeant Brennan is tasked with overseeing the security of the controversial visitor and all seems to be going to plan...until a murder is committed on the night of Crosby’s talk.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A brutal murder and a shocking deathbed confession - the love triangle of Karen Garborg, Thord Jensen and Olaf Kinck proves deadly on the Norwegian ski slopes.