Showing results by publisher "Little, Brown Audio" in Literature & Fiction

'Full of invention and ingenuity . . . Great fun' - SFX 'Parker's settings and characterisations never miss a beat' - Publishers Weekly K. J. Parker's new novel is the remarkable tale of the siege of a walled city, and the even more remarkable man who had to defend it. A siege is approaching...

Stuck in a dead-end job, broken-hearted, broke and estranged from her best friend, Violet's life is nothing like she thought it would be. She wants more - better friends, better sex, a better job - and she wants it now. So, when Lottie - who looks like the woman Violet wants to be when she grows up - offers Violet the chance to join her exciting start-up, she bites. Only it soon becomes clear that Lottie and her husband, Simon, are not only inviting Violet into their company, they are also inviting her into their lives.

In the summer of 1358 the physician Matthew Bartholomew returns to Cambridge to learn that his beloved sister is in mourning after the unexpected death of her husband, Oswald Stanmore. Aware that his son has no interest in the cloth trade that made his fortune and reputation, Oswald has left the business to his widow, but a spate of burglaries in the town distracts Matthew from supporting Edith in her grief and attempting to keep the peace between her and her wayward son.

In 1360 Edward III issues a call to arms, as sporadic attacks by the French threaten to turn into a full-blown invasion. In Cambridge, fear of the enemy is magnified by the belief that foreign agents are lurking in the area. Tension runs ever higher as rumours and ignorance fan the flames of suspicion amid preparations for war. And then the first murder occurs - of a French scholar living in the town.

When Kurt Austin is injured while rescuing the passengers and crew of a sinking yacht, he wakes up with conflicting memories of what he saw. Did he witness an old friend and her children drown, or was the yacht abandoned when he came aboard? For reasons he cannot explain—yet—Kurt doesn't trust either version of his recollection. Determined to seek out the truth, he soon descends into a shadowy world of state-sponsored cybercrime, where he uncovers a pattern of suspicious accidents, vanishing scientists and a web of human trafficking.

The plague raging through London in 1665 has emptied the city. The only people left are those too poor to flee or those who selflessly struggle to control the contagion and safeguard the capital's future. Amongst them, though, are those prepared to risk their health for money - those who sell dubious 'cures' and hawk food at wildly inflated prices. Also amongst them are those who hold in their hands the future of the city's most iconic building - St Paul's Cathedral.

England, 1176. Imprisoned by her husband, King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England, refuses to let her powerful husband bully her into submission, even as he forces her away from her children and her birthright. Freed only by Henry's death, Eleanor becomes dowager Queen of England. But the competition for land and power that Henry stirred up among his sons has intensified to a dangerous rivalry.

Having just returned from a clandestine excursion to Spain and Portugal on behalf of the queen, Thomas Chaloner finds London dank and grey under leaden skies. He finds many things changed, including the government slapping a tax on printed newspapers. Handwritten news reports escape the duty, and the rivalry between the producers of the two conduits of news is the talk of the coffee houses with the battle to be first with any sort of intelligence escalating into violent rivalry. And it seems that a number of citizens who have eaten cucumbers have come to untimely deaths.

Matthew Bartholomew doesn't want to travel to Peterborough in the summer of 1358, but his friendship with the lovely Julitta Holm has caused a scandal in Cambridge, so he has no choice. He is one of a party of Bishop's Commissioners, charged to discover what happened to Peterborough's abbot, who went for a ride one day and has not been seen since. When the Commissioners arrive, they find the town in turmoil.

This wonderful series opens with the back drop of the Wars of the Roses with the marriage between Eleanor Morland and a scion of the influential house of Beaufort. It is a union which establishes the powerful Morland dynasty and in the succeeding volumes of this rich tapestry of English life, we follow their fortunes through war and peace, political upheaval and social revolution, times of pestilence and periods of plenty, and through the vicissitudes which afflict every family - love and passion, envy and betrayal, birth and death, great fortune and miserable penury.

In a poisonous cloud of spray, the curtain falls on a drama queen. Little did beloved British actress Mary Bellamy know that she would be done in at her own birthday party - choked by toxic mist from the bottle of Slaypest, a deadly insecticide. Basking in the glow of her most adoring fans - who all happened to be her most duplicitous enemies - Mary would make her final performance.

In the spring of 1666 everyone's first reaction to a sudden death at the palace of White Hall is that the plague has struck, but the killing of Thomas Chiffinch was by design, not disease. Chiffinch was holder of two influential posts - Keeper of the Closet and Keeper of the Jewels - and rival courtiers have made no secret of their wish to succeed to those offices. To Thomas Chaloner, ordered to undertake the investigation, such avarice gives a whole host of suspects an ample motive for murder.

In 1665, England is facing war with the Dutch, and the capital is awash with rumours of conspiracy and sedition. As an experienced investigator, Thomas Chaloner knows that there are very few grains of truth in the shifting sands of the rumour-mill, but the murder of Paul Ferine, a Groom of the Robes, in a brothel favoured by the elite of the Palace of White Hall makes him scent a whiff of genuine treason.

1937. War with Germany is dawning and a civil war already raging in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile their former maid Louisa Cannon is now a private detective, working with her ex-policeman husband, Guy Sullivan. Louisa and Guy are surprised when a call comes in from novelist Nancy Mitford requesting that they look into the disappearance of her Communist sister, Jessica, nicknamed Decca. It quickly becomes clear that Decca may have made for the war in Spain - and not alone.

The restoration of a bombed-out London theatre ends in violent death - and one of Marsh’s most vivid and dramatic novels. When the bombed-out Dolphin Theatre is given to Peregrine Jay by a mysterious wealthy patron, he is overjoyed. And when the mysterious oil millionaire also gives him a glove that belonged to Shakespeare, Peregrine displays it in the dockside theatre and writes a successful play about it.

Lord Pastern fired his revolver. The figure in the spotlight fell and the coup-de-theatre had become murder. Could Inspector Alleyn believe Pastern had let hatred of his future son-in-law go too far? Or would the tangle of jealousies and blackmail among the guests reveal another murderer?...

When he's caught stealing, young Alan Dale is forced to leave his family and go to live with a notorious band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Their leader is the infamous Robin Hood. A tough, bloodthirsty warrior, Robin is more feared than any man in the county. And he becomes a mentor for Alan; with his fellow outlaws, Robin teaches Alan how to fight - and how to win.

"I can command storms, summon fire, and unmake stone. Animals have nothing interesting to say, and no one can see the future because it has not been written," growled Balfruss. "It's dangerous to meddle with things you don't understand." When you fight magic with magic, nothing is certain. Balfruss is a battlemage, one of a vanishing breed, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears and despises him.

Iraq, 2003: in the post-war looting of the treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum, a legendary Phoenicean statue is stolen . . .Known as the Navigator, the statue points back to the days of King Solomon and is the vital clue to a secret of unimaginable power. Lucky then that UN investigator Carina Mechadi recovers it quickly. But a daring raid by helicopter in Iceberg Alley off Newfoundland and the statue is gone again - while Carina is only saved by the timely intervention of Kurt Austin of NUMA.

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.