Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Dark Humour

Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on at Swafford....

The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, a 'national treasure' (his words); his wife, Beverley, a celebrated novelist; and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen. Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant.

At home full-time with her two-year old son while his father travels for work, a woman finds herself struggling with solitude, monotony and exhaustion. If she has to manage one more bedtime alone, she fears she will lose her mind. So far, so familiar, you might say? But one night, a strange metamorphosis occurs.

At dinner parties and over coffee, Rabih and Kirsten's friends always ask them the same question: how did you meet? The answer comes easily - it's a happy story, one they both love to tell. But there is a second part to this story, the answer to a question their friends never ask: what happened next? Rabih and Kirsten find each other, fall in love, get married. Society tells us this is the end of the story. In fact it is only the beginning.

After 30 years at St Oswald's Grammar in North Yorkshire, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go. Each class has its clowns, its rebels, its underdogs, its 'Brodie' boys who, whilst of course he doesn't have favourites, hold a special place in an old teacher's heart. But every so often there's a boy who doesn't fit the mould. A troublemaker. A boy with hidden shadows inside.

You probably already know my name. Lucy Chase, the woman who doesn’t remember murdering her best friend. Even though they couldn’t find enough evidence to charge me, I know you all think I did it. That’s OK. I realise being found wandering the streets the next day covered in her blood wasn't a great look. Believe me, I’m as frustrated as you are. I’d love to know if I’m a murderer – it’s the sort of thing you really should know about yourself, isn’t it? And now, thanks to true-crime podcast Listen for the Lie, I finally have the chance to find out.

It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? Our narrator has many of the advantages of life: young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. But there is a vacuum at the heart of things, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents in college, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her alleged best friend.

Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f****n junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total f***n embarrassment tae the selfish, f****d-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-driving cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

Paula has had Robert's back since they got together as drama students. She gave up her dreams so he could make it; now he's one of the nation's most popular actors. But Paula's just discovered he's having an affair. Now, she's going to break his heart like he broke hers. It will be her greatest acting role ever. Revenge is sweet.... Isn't it?

What to do if Matthew, your secret lover, finally decides to leave his wife, Sophie, and daughters and move into your flat, just when you're thinking that you might not want him anymore. Plan A: Stop shaving your armpits. And your bikini line. Tell him you have a moustache that you wax every six weeks. Plan B: Accidentally on purpose bump into his wife, Sophie. Give yourself a fake name and identity. Befriend Sophie. Actually begin to really like Sophie. Snog Matthew's son (who's the same age as you by the way - you're not a paedophile). Buy a cat and give it a fake name and identity.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Faking Friends by Jane Fallon, read by Sally Scott and Kristin Atherton. Best friend. Soulmate. Confidante. Backstabber. Amy thought she knew who Melissa was - then again, Amy also thought she was on the verge of the wedding of her dreams to her long-distance fiancé. When her career begins to unravel, she pays a surprise trip home to London. Her boyfriend Jack is out, but another woman has been making herself at home....

'And God said, Let there be light; and there was light, but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.' There have been many interpretations of the Old Testament over the centuries but never one quite like this. Spike Milligan has rewritten, in his own inimitable style, many of the best-known stories of the Old Testament, featuring characters like King 'my brain hurts' Solomon; the great oaf of a giant, Goliath; and the lesser-known crossword clue, Hushai the Archite.

Holly is feeling on top of the world - celebrating a new promotion and dying to pop the champagne with her best friend Roz. But is Holly just imagining things, or is Roz - who supported her every step of the way - not as happy for her as she should be? Something about Roz's behaviour doesn't add up. And soon Holly has the sneaking suspicion that there's a target on her back. Has someone been playing dirty in a war Holly didn't know she was fighting? And is Roz more tangled up in this than she'll admit? Only one woman can be left standing - but will the best woman win?

In the land of Lapvona, the lord of the land Villiam is cheating the local villagers of their food, their water, their livelihoods. Grotesque and ridiculous, he marries the pregnant and tongueless ex-nun Agata, whom he believes will make him God, and his son will be the second Christ.

Years on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realise his ambitions within the Adult industries, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton.

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet The Judge. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister.

Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge.

Meet Steven Stelfox. London, 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power, and Britpop is at its zenith. A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine, searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification. But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.

The sensational new crime novel from the best-selling author of Snap. Pensioner Felix Pink is about to find out that it’s never too late...for life to go horribly wrong. When Felix lets himself in to Number Three Black Lane, he’s there to perform an act of kindness and charity: to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath. But just 15 minutes later Felix is on the run from the police - after making the biggest mistake of his life.