Showing results by narrator "John Telfer" in All Categories

A group of scientists fed up with the post-Hiroshima world set themselves up with the resources to produce a phenomenally fast stealth plane which can intercept missiles - and hope to use it to bring about world peace. Recruited as a test pilot, can the hero stop a world from sliding into chaos?

In the early eighteenth century, the British army led by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, were the leaders of a wide-ranging and very successful alliance. Jack Steel, maverick gentleman, superb soldier, was in the middle of any fight.

"Have you ever seen a ghost, Mr. Holmes?" asks Victoria Temple, and Sherlock Holmes, at the height of his powers in 1898, must face a new challenge, one that plunges the great detective into the realm of the supernatural. Miss Temple has been found guilty - but also insane - at her trial for murdering a child under her care. She is locked away in the Broadmoor lunatic asylum, and worse still, she believes fully in her own guilt....

Would you receive a ‘char and a wad’ with a grateful smile? If asked to take a ‘dekko’, would you be offended? And if spotted reading the ‘yellow press’, would you be embarrassed?The meaning of these and many other intriguing phrases are defined, and their loss lamented, in this wonderfully nostalgic look at how language has changed over the past few decades.

George Best is considered the greatest footballer of our time. No other imposed himself so completely on to the romantic imagination. No other was so emblematic of the era during which he flourished. And no other will ever be as memorable as George Best. On the field Best's skills were sublime and almost other-worldly. Off it, he had a magnetic appeal. He was treated like a pop icon and a pin-up; a fashion-model and a sex-symbol. Every man envied him and every woman adored him.

There are so many Latin phrases in everyday use that often we use them without understanding the background and context within which they were actually used. 'Carpe diem'; 'Stet'; 'Memento mori'; 'Et tu Brute' – examples would fill a book. And often these phrases are also used in English translation: 'The die is cast'; 'crossing the Rubicon'; 'Rome was not built in a day'.

In these three stories set in the American west, the Saint finds ways to get into his usual trouble. He travels to Arizona in pursuit of a Nazi scientist who wants to take over a ranch to mine the mercury underneath, goes to Palm Springs and gets hired as the bodyguard to an alcoholic millionaire, and almost becomes a movie star in Hollywood. Leslie Charteris was born in Singapore and moved to England in 1919. He left Cambridge University early when his first novel was accepted for publication.

March, 1605. Country doctor and former ship surgeon Gabriel Taverner is ready for his next adventure. He can't wait to leave Devon and tend to the crew of the Luipaard while sailing the Eastern seas. As years pass by, Gabriel's family and friends back home are struggling with his substitute physician. Doctor Maudsley Cheverell turned out to be as incompetent as they come and unpleasant at best. So when he is found dead in a ditch one day, no one seems to be too surprised. Only, when examining the body, it seems like Cheverell was tortured using a specific method from the East . . .

Oscar is having the worst holiday ever. So when his dad suggests the family go on a haunted tour of York, he jumps at the chance of doing something that doesn't involve trailing round gift shops. But the ghost walk turns out to have a haunting twist.... A terrifying ghost story that will chill your blood, from acclaimed author Matt Haig.

1905. A year after 'the affair' in Dinas Powys, Thomas Bexley has become a drunkard and recluse, haunted by terrible visions of the dead. But when news of a spate of extraordinary kidnappings reaches him, Thomas is shocked to learn that his dear friend and former mentor, Professor Elijah Hawthorn, is the lead suspect. Discovering a plea for help from Hawthorn claiming to have unearthed a gruesome conspiracy at the heart of the Metropolitan Police, Thomas embarks on a journey to prove Hawthorn's innocence.

Origen (c. 185-c. 253) was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality. This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings, written and compiled by Joseph W. Trigg, a leading Origen authority. An introduction analyzes the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker.

A young woman named Samantha Andretti wakes up in a hospital bed. Samantha was abducted when she was 13. She was kept prisoner for 15 years. The man by her side, Dr Green, believes that Samantha's memories contain the clues that will lead to the capture of her abductor. But why does she keep referring to a labyrinth? Outside the hospital, private investigator Bruno Genko does not have long to live. Bruno was assigned to Samantha's case many years ago, and now it is his chance to make amends.

211 BCE. The Roman invasion from the western seas is imminent, and from the south the Spartans are burning and pillaging their way north. Battle-hardened Philopoemen believes the Achean League is facing annihilation if it does not arm. But without a formal army or cavalry, they don't stand a chance. Convincing his friend and healer Alexanor that the threat is real, together they begin to build a massive cavalry guard from the ground up - one that will fight on all fronts. It is the last roll of the dice for the Achean League.

The Saint has become better known - but that just increases the number of people who seek out his help. In these nine short stories, Simon has a chance to show off his skills: he matches his wits against confidence tricksters, objects to a hanging, gets the better of a patent pill millionaire, solves a locked-room murder in a secret laboratory, goes fishing, turns journalist and ends the book with a bang - literally!

In a momentous period of British history, Donald Thomas' latest Sherlock Holmes adventure pits the great detective and his faithful biographer, Dr. John Watson, against an international conspiracy led by a disgraced English officer. Colonel Hunter Moran bears upon him the "Mark of the Beast"; his satanic ingenuity leaves a spectacular trail of devastation. It runs from the annihilation of a British armored column by Zulu tribesmen - armed only with shields and spears - to a life-and-death struggle on the sinking passenger steamer Comtesse de Flandre.

Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast—and then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory Bath. Entreated by Lucy to join her party for an evening back at the Bath residence, Hugh is powerless to resist, but when the night ends with the judge's inexplicable murder he is pitched back into a world of chaos and crime—a world he had tried to escape for good.

Meet the greatest Greek general you've never heard of: Philopoemen. In his day, a leader as skilled and as dangerous as Hannibal: a ferocious fighter, a superb general, and credited as the inventor of modern 'special operations'. More importantly, he was a brilliant political leader. He commanded Greek forces at the turn of the third century BC, when mighty Rome, fresh from the destruction of Carthage, and Imperial Macedon, the greatest power of the day, chose Greece as their battlefield.

The Saint is in Washington, DC, when a young woman asks for his help. Her father, a noted scientist, has invented a new form of synthetic rubber. But he has disappeared, and she is under threat. She turns to Simon Templar, who soon finds himself involved in war-time intrigue.

In Elizabethan England, the Queen’s chief spymaster, Francis Walsingham, and his team of agents must maintain the highest levels of vigilance to ward off Catholic plots and the ever-present threat of invasion. One agent in particular - a young Cambridge undergraduate of humble origins, controversial beliefs and literary genius who goes by the name of Kit Marlowe - is relentless in his pursuit of intelligence for the Crown. When he is killed outside an inn in Deptford, his mysterious death becomes the subject of rumours and suspicion that are never satisfactorily resolved.

Simon Templar is at his cavalier best in this collection of South American adventures. In Mexico he meets an ice-cool blonde with her own Saintly ideas - and joins in the fun. In Baja California he gets caught up in a strange story of two women and a blind man's oyster bed. In Havana the Saint answers a beautiful woman's plea for help and discovers a revolution that isn't quite what it claims. And finally, in Panama he plays the sucker - but it doesn't last.