Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

John Milton has a nose for trouble. He can smell it a mile away. And when he witnesses a suspicious altercation between a young man and two thugs in a car auction parking lot, he can’t resist getting involved. Milton came to Kansas City hoping to find a way out of danger. His recent vendetta against a cartel hitman who killed his friend has made him enemies in high places. Now he needs to find the only man who can get him out of this mess.

An astonishing historical novel set in the shadowy, magical forests of South America, which draws on the captivating world of the international best seller The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. Deep in uncharted Peru, the holy town of Bedlam stands at the edge of a forest. The shrine statues move, and anyone who crosses the border dies. But somewhere inside are cinchona trees, whose bark yields quinine: the only known treatment for malaria. On the other side of the Pacific, it is 1859, and India is ravaged by the disease.

Disgraced former Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago and his larger-than-life employer the journalist William Philpott have escaped America - and Philpott's near imprisonment for libel - by the skin of their teeth. They return to Laurence's home town of Helston in Cornwall in the hope of rest and recuperation, but instead find themselves in the middle of a tumultuous election. Only two men may vote in this rotten borough, and when one of them dies in suspicious circumstances, Laurence is ordered to investigate on behalf of the town's political patron, his old master the Duke of Leeds.

An outdoor adventure trip is one thing, but can Roman Garstang survive a chicken nugget-only diet? Roman is all set for his class trip to Farm View outdoor survival centre. There are only three issues: 1. With Darren Gamble as his new BFF, how can Roman make friends with funny, cool girl Vanya? 2. Roman will be sharing a tent with Kevin, 'The Pukelear Missile', for three days. 3. Mum has prescribed a strict chicken nugget-only diet (seriously?!).

In spring 2018, England cricket had a performance problem. The Test team hadn’t won a Test match overseas for nearly two years. Recently crushed in the Ashes, England teams were world ranked 5th, 4th and 2nd across the three formats. The England and Wales Cricket Board approached Ed Smith, asking him to bring in a whole new philosophy. Over the next three years, England’s teams won 7 out of 10 completed matches—better than England had ever performed in the board’s history. Making Decisions shares Ed’s approach to finding success.

Britain's empire has gone. Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its former self; the Royal Navy has been reduced to a skeleton. In military, diplomatic and economic terms, we no longer matter as we once did. And yet there is still one area in which we can legitimately claim superpower status: our popular culture.

When a young man washes up, naked, on the sands of St Piran, he is quickly rescued by the villagers. From the retired village doctor and the schoolteacher, to the beachcomber and the owner of the local bar, the priest's wife and the romantic novelist, they take this lost soul into their midst. But what the villagers don't know is that Joe Haak worked as an analyst and has fled the City amid fears of a worldwide banking collapse caused by a computer program he invented. But is the end of the world really nigh?

To love and protect. The code of the good dog is clear. When single mother Tuesday took on mongrel pup Stupendo, she made a friend for life. Through the best and the worst of times, Stupendo has been there for her. Ever faithful, ever loyal, ever true. Nothing could break their bond. Until last week. Stupendo doesn't know why Tuesday is suddenly ignoring him or why his doggy antics no longer seem to soothe Baby William. It takes his worst enemy - the cat next door - to break the news that Stupendo has become a ghost.

The year is 1999, and Internet companies are springing up everywhere. Anything seems possible for those who think big. So when David Lane - a quiet, cautious banker - is invited by his old friend Guy Jordan to help start up ninetyminutes.com, he decides that for once he will do something daring, something dangerous. If only he'd realised quite how dangerous. Because Guy falls out with Tony Jordan, his father and their biggest investor, bringing the company close to collapse. Then Tony is murdered - and David's roller coaster ride into danger and disaster begins.

Ben wasn't brought up, he was dragged up. With absent parents and broken friends, a young Ben makes choices that are ruining his life. Before he’s even 20, Ben’s spells in prison begin, and soon he finds himself involved in serious crime. When people begin to die, Ben must choose a side.

Group Fifteen operative and ex-MI6 officer Charlie Cooper is working undercover as a political negotiator. Attending a conference surrounded by diplomats, businessmen and lobbyists, nobody would suspect what he really does for a living. Also in their midst is Aisha, a Saudi activist whose protests against human rights abuses have made her an enemy of her country's regime.

In a masterpiece of storytelling, Margery Allingham sends her elegant and engaging detective Albert Campion into the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths. And if poisoning were not enough, there are also anonymous letters, sudden violence and a vanishing coffin. Meanwhile the Palinodes go about their nocturnal business and Campion dices with danger in his efforts to find the truth.

John Milton has started to hope that he might have a future. He has a job driving a taxi around the streets of San Francisco. He has his anonymity and his solitude. Being invisible has become a comfortable habit. He doesn't want to be found. But when a girl he drives to a party goes missing, Milton is worried. Especially when two dead bodies are discovered, and the police start treating him as their prime suspect. Milton is a fugitive from the British Secret Service, and a man in his position needs extra attention like he needs a hole in the head.

The fourth book in Mark Dawson's action-packed Charlie Cooper Thrillers.

Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

Over the years, authors, artists and amblers aplenty have felt the pull of the Thames, and now travel writer Tom Chesshyre is following in their footsteps. He's walking the length of the river from the Cotswolds to the North Sea - a winding journey of over 200 miles. Join him for an illuminating stroll past meadows, churches, palaces, country (and council) estates, factories and dockyards.

On this day of ill omen, plague makes its entrance. Within weeks, swathes of England will be darkened by death's shadow. While panic and suspicion flood the land, a small band of travelers comes together to outrun the breakdown in law and order. But when one of their number is found hanging from a tree, the chilling discovery confirms that something more sinister than plague is in their midst.

In 1360, the Great Bridge over the River Cam is close to collapse. To repair it will cost the town and the University dear, especially if its rotten wood is replaced by more durable stone. As arguments rage over raising the money other, equally heated, differences are coming to the boil over the election of a new chancellor. While the majority support Brother Michael for the post, at least one of his opponents aims to seize it by fair means or foul. Then the discovery of a body under the bridge and the disappearance of two scholars throws a more sinister shadow over both disputes.

Newly appointed police inspector Domenic Jejeune doesn't mind ruffling a few feathers. His success has elevated him into a poster boy for the police. The problem is Jejeune doesn't really want to be a detective at all; he much prefers watching birds. Recently reassigned to the small Norfolk town of Saltmarsh, Jejeune's two worlds collide with the grisly murder of a prominent ecological activist.

A bulwark against invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the English Channel has always been many things to many people. Today it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and hosts more than 30 million passenger crossings every year but this sliver of choppy brine, just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, represents much more than a conductor of goods and people.