Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

March, 1918. British newspapers carry the dreadful news that the German Spring Offensive has begun, with thousands of British lives lost. Detective Sargeant Joe Keedy is awaiting release from hospital in London and is anxious to resume the fight against crime on the Home Front. Late one night, a bank is raided by a gang and the villains escape by car with a sizeable haul. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion is put in charge of the case, but without Keedy at his side he faces an uphill battle to solve this perplexing case.

Joseph Sherman first visits Saigon, the capital of French colonial Cochin-China, in 1925 on a hunting expedition with his father, a US senator. He is lured back again and again as a traveler, a soldier, and then as a reporter by his fascination for the exotic land and for Lan, a mandarin's daughter he cannot forget. Over five decades, Joseph's life becomes enmeshed with the political intrigues of two of Saigon's most influential families, the French colonist Devrauxs, and the native Trans - and inevitably with Vietnam's turbulent, war torn fate.

Vienna, 1904. The body of a man is discovered in an abandoned piano factory on the outskirts of the city. Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt calls on his good friend Doctor Max Lieberman to assist in an investigation that draws them both into the unconventional world of fringe political activism. An appalling act of terror has been planned, and Rheinhardt must hope that Liebermann, with his profound knowledge of psychology and science, will be able to prevent the coming catastrophe.

Gerald Brown is a handsome and brilliant young engineer - wrongfully accused of stealing diamonds from his South African firm. Why has he been framed? Elizabeth Burleigh is a beautiful and talented West End actress – compelled to deny herself what marriage could bring her. What is the secret that impairs her love? Gerald and Elizabeth are half-brother and sister. They are reunited in London and together they face the mysteries that have made them both so unhappy.

When the body of hotel owner Piet Jansen is discovered amid the ruins of an archaeological site by the Nile, it looks like a routine investigation for Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police. But the more he learns about Jansen, the more he is reminded of the brutal murder, some years earlier, of an Israeli woman at Karnak for which he always suspected the wrong man was convicted.

1862. A goods train is speeding through the Sapperton Tunnel when it hits a makeshift pen of sheep inexplicably set up near the exit. The animals are slaughtered by the impact whilst the train hits a pile of rocks and is derailed, seriously injuring the occupants. Inspector Colbeck discovers that the shepherd and his dog are missing. Stephen Rydall who owned the sheep is shocked by the occurrence, which further affects him as he is a major shareholder in the Great Western Railway.

The captain of the Newhaven to Dieppe steamer spots a small pleasure yacht lying motionless in the water and, on closer inspection, sees a body lying on the deck. When members of his crew go aboard the yacht, they find not one male corpse but two. The dead men were chairman and vice chairman of Moxon General Securities, one of the largest financial houses in the country. Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard is called in. French soon discovers that Moxon's is on the brink of collapse.

The discovery of a human skeleton and a red rucksack amongst the roots of a fallen tree jolts memories for DI Wesley Peterson: a hitchhiker who went missing in 2008 and was never found. Meanwhile, in the small Devon village of Petherham, a famous TV psychic is the main attraction at a supernatural weekend. But when the psychic dies in suspicious circumstances Wesley discovers a connection between the dead man and the vanished hitchhiker. But was he responsible for her murder? Or has a shady organisation called The Burial Circle been revived in the present day?

An excavation at the lost gardens of Earlsacre Hall is called to a halt when a skeleton is discovered under a 300-year-old stone plinth, a corpse that seems to have been buried alive. But DS Wesley has a more recent murder case to solve. A man has been found stabbed to death in a caravan at a popular holiday park, and the only clue to his identity is a newspaper cutting about the restoration of Earlsacre. Does local solicitor Brian Willerby have the answer?

Boothgate House is a recently converted apartment building with a sinister past. Once an asylum for the insane, known as Havenby Hall, it was where serial killer Peter Brockmeister was sent on his release from prison. Detective Inspector Joe Plantagenet is drawn into the house's history when the daughter of a solicitor, who was investigating Havenby Hall's closure, is kidnapped. Joe wonders whether there may be a connection between the case and the building's disturbing past.

Drawing on extensive archival sources and hundreds of interviews, Timothy Brennan’s Places of Mind is the first comprehensive biography of Said, one of the most controversial and celebrated intellectuals of the 20th century. In Brennan’s masterful work, Said, the pioneer of post-colonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender and eloquent advocate of literature’s dramatic effects on politics and civic life.

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters: his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions; and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.

When the decapitated body of a monk is found outside Vienna's most splendid baroque church, a young psychoanalyst, Dr Liebermann, must enter a world of secret lore and mysticism if he is to find the key to the mystery....

1895. Former Scotland Yard detective Daniel Wilson, made famous from his days working the Jack the Ripper case, and his archaeologist sidekick Abigail Fenton are summoned to investigate the murder of a young woman at the Manchester Museum. Though staff remember the woman as a recent and regular visitor, no one appears to know who she is, and she has no possessions which identify her. Seeking help from a local journalist, Daniel hopes to unravel this mystery, but the journey to the truth is fraught with obstacles.

Pentonville Prison. Wally Hibbert is serving a long sentence for arson. But after befriending and tricking one of the officers, Hibbert makes an audacious escape. Inspector Marmion, the detective who arrested Hibbert, is warned to watch his back, but it seems that Hibbert has another target in his murderous sights. However, the investigation is mired in confusion, and the identities of killer and victim become increasingly ambiguous.

On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 16, setting in motion Operation Sea Lion: his plan to invade England. The success of Operation Sea Lion hinged entirely on the destruction of the RAF and the Royal Navy, but even as Hitler's plans swung into action and England, barely recovered from Dunkirk, rallied her defences, the Battle of Britain began and in just a few months Germany had lost all hope of dominating England's skies and with it, the key to the invasion. On 17 September, 1940, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely and the entire episode faded from memory.

I was just a freelance hero doing his best in a hard world.' The spirit of adventure calls Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He's picking up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the Chief Spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong. A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria.

A Christmas party is punctuated by a gunshot under a policeman’s watchful eye. A jewel heist is planned amidst the glitz and glamour of Oxford Street’s Christmas shopping. And lost in a snowstorm, a man finds a motive for murder.... This collection of mysteries explores the darker side of the festive season, from unexplained disturbances in the fresh snow to the darkness that lurks beneath the sparkling decorations.

With some trepidation Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests' interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife fight, a disgruntled aunt Gwenny departs for Europe. Receiving a telegram from Le Touquet inviting him to join Gwenny in the south of France, Nigel finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d'Azur.

Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue - and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple's peaceful rural life. The case soon takes a more complex turn.