Showing results by narrator "Adam Sims" in All Categories

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

Joe Coughlin is 19 when he meets Emma Gould. A small-time thief in 1920s Boston, he is told to cuff her while his accomplices raid the casino she works for. But Joe falls in love with Emma - and his life changes forever.

That meeting is the beginning of Joe's journey to becoming one of the nation's most feared and respected gangsters. It is a journey beset by violence, double-crossing, drama, and pain. And it is a journey into the soul of prohibition-era America....

When Armand Gamache receives a letter inviting him to an abandoned farmhouse outside of Three Pines, the former head of the Sûreté du Québec discovers that a complete stranger has named him as an executor of her will. Armand never knew the elderly woman, and the bequests are so wildly unlikely that he suspects the woman must have been delusional - until a body is found, and the terms of the bizarre will suddenly seem far more menacing. But it isn't the only menace Gamache is facing.

Autumn 1945 - Off the east coast of England, a Japanese sub surfaces, unloads its mysterious cargo, then blows itself to pieces. Former spy Professor Tom Wilde is enjoying peacetime in Cambridge, settling back into teaching and family life. Until a call from senior MI5 boss Lord Templeman brings him out of retirement. A nearby village has been locked down by the military, its residents blighted by a deadly illness. No one is allowed in or out. There are rumours the Nazi machine is still operational, with links to Unit 731, a notorious Japanese biological warfare research laboratory.

Winter in Three Pines, and the sleepy village is carpeted in snow. It's a time of peace and goodwill - until a scream pierces the biting air. A spectator at the annual Boxing Day curling match has been fatally electrocuted. Despite the large crowd, there are no witnesses and - apparently - no clues. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache discovers a history of secrets and enemies in the dead woman's past.

In a great English house, a young woman offers herself to one of the most powerful and influential figures in the land - but this is no ordinary seduction. She plans to ensure his death.... On holiday in France, Professor Tom Wilde discovers his brilliant student Marcus Marfield, who disappeared two years earlier to join the International Brigades in Spain, in the Le Vernet concentration camp in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Wilde secures his release just as German tanks roll into Poland. Meanwhile, a U-boat sinks the liner Athenia in the Atlantic with many casualties....

Kabuto is an ordinary guy; stressed with work, hassled by his wife and disrespected by his son. No wonder he visits his doctor so often. Except 'the Doctor' is actually his handler, and Kabuto is a hired assassin. The 'prescriptions' the Doctor hands over are his unlucky targets. Because although Kabuto may seem like a small man at home, he's really good at killing people.

Lincoln and Amelia are recruited to track down a cargo ship carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as the Ghost. But when the capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have vanished deep into the labyrinthine world of New York City's Chinese community....

Learn to let go of stress. Change how you worry. And improve your life for good. Shunmyo Masuno, Zen Buddhist Monk and million-copy best-selling author of Zen: The Art of Simple Living, shows you how in 48 vital, easy-to-achieve lessons that will empower and equip you to relieve the anxieties of everyday life.

Since they were lured to the festival at Carousel, Riley (the Film Buff), Antoine (the Athlete), Camden (the Scholar), Anna (the Final Girl), and Kimberly (the Eye Candy) have lived through entire horror movie plots. So far, Riley's survival strategy is working. He's high on his Moxie, Hustle, and Savvy stats. But his Mettle and Grit have dropped dangerously low, leaving him vulnerable. If he gets caught by a killer, he's done for.

Tom Ripley is quietly living in luxury at his chateau at Villeperce. He has a past, however, that would not bear too much close scrutiny. He is certain that he has covered his tracks where murder and forgery are concerned. But when a certain American couple move in next door, he soon realises his every move is being shadowed. Ripley fears his secrets may be discovered, and he will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening.

Satsuki has spent 30 years hating one man: did her desire for revenge cause the earthquake? Miyake left his family in Kobe to make midnight bonfires on a beach hundreds of miles away. Fourteen-year-old Sala has nightmares that the Earthquake Man is trying to stuff her inside a little box. Katagiri returns home to find a giant frog in his apartment on a mission to save Tokyo from a massive burrowing worm.

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him. But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true. So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth.

Former chief inspector Gamache has been hunting killers his entire career, and as the new commander of the Sûreté Academy, he is given the chance to combat the corruption and brutality that have been rife throughout the force. But when a former colleague and professor of the Sûreté Academy is found murdered, with a mysterious map of Three Pines in his possession, Gamache has an even tougher task ahead of him.

Jack Morgan is in Rome celebrating the opening of the new local Private office, when the party takes a deadly turn. Private agent Matteo Ricci is found at the party standing over the body of a dead priest with a gun in hand, swearing he did not kill the man. As Jack tries to prove Matteo's innocence, he uncovers a much deadlier conspiracy - which leads straight to the heart of the Vatican. With corruption closing in on all sides, Jack must decide who he can trust before the city falls.

On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather for a family dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. But the evening ends in horror when Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand is convinced is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on an elderly man's life. When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand on a desperate search for the truth that will take him from the top of the Tour Eiffel to the bowels of the Paris Archives.

For graduate student Jeremy Freirs, citified, cynical, yet prone to daydreams, summer is the time to shed a few pounds and finally get some reading done for a course on Gothic literature. He's picked just the right place: the small, secluded village of Gilead, New Jersey, only 90 minutes from Manhattan but, with its antique customs and clannish traditions, seemingly centuries away. For farmers Sarr and Deborah Poroth, young members of Gilead's fundamentalist community, the summer threatens a conflict between their passionate natures and the stern dictates of their faith.

William James was one of the most influential figures in 19th-century American philosophy and psychology. His Pragmatism is a set of lectures that he gave in 1906-07 in answer to the enduring debate between empiricism and rationalism. Shifting between them, he proposed pragmatism as a method, the idea being that the value of any truth is dependent upon its utility–upon its practical and experiential consequences.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Play On by Jeff Bercovici, read by Adam Sims. Sports are about challenging our physical limits. But the greatest limit of all remains undefeated: age. We're taught to believe that ageing thwarts effort and grace, talent and grit, outstanding teamwork and individual brilliance. But a new breed of top professionals - the likes of Roger Federer, Jo Pavey and Tom Brady - are overturning long-held assumptions about the duration of primetime in a sporting career. It's not that aging causes a decline in fitness; rather, a decline in fitness causes aging.

Sweden, 1942—Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hessen, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler. Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident—but not everyone is convinced. There is even a suggestion that the Duke's plane was sabotaged, but with no evidence, Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to discover the truth . . .