Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Amateur Sleuths

Actor, alcoholic and amateur sleuth Charles Paris returns in another quintet of humorous theatrical thrillers. All Charles asks for is a nice juicy part in a successful play - but wherever he appears on the bill, murder and mystery always play a starring role.

Charles Paris - unsuccessful actor, bad husband, and dipsomaniac - is back, and getting into trouble once more. As he tries to woo back his semi-detached wife, Frances, and land a few half-decent roles, he finds himself embroiled in murder and mayhem and forced to turn detective. Luckily, his sleuthing is much better than his acting.

Thespian sleuth Charles Paris is his own worst enemy, a louche lush who can resist anything except temptation - especially in the form of women and alcohol. Estranged from his long-suffering wife, Frances, his personal life is shambolic, and as an actor, he's C-list at best. But he does have a talent for solving murders - which is just as well, because wherever he goes, someone seems to drop dead.

June Whitfield returns as the deceptively mild spinster sleuth in three full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations. Specially broadcast to mark the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, these brand new dramas are based on three of her best short stories.

Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s deceptively mild spinster sleuth, is being treated to a few days’ holiday by her niece, staying at Bertram’s Hotel, a dignified, unostentatious establishment tucked away in a back street of busy Mayfair. Here is a place where sedate upper class ladies, retired military gentlemen and the higher echelons of the clergy can indulge in the comforts of a bygone age. But Miss Marple begins to feel uneasy. Something sinister lurks beneath the polished veneer.

Paul Temple swings into the '60s with five complete radio dramas featuring the writer-cum-amateur detective and his wife, Steve, plus bonus archive material. Between 1938 and 1968, Paul and Steve's exploits enthralled generations of radio listeners around the world. Here, presented in chronological order, are 'The Gilbert Case' (1960 remake), 'The Margo Mystery' (1961), 'The Jonathan Mystery' (1963 remake), 'The Geneva Mystery' (1965) and 'The Alex Affair' (1968). This set also includes the bonus radio feature 'Peter Coke and the Paul Temple Affair'.

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of John le Carré's first novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley. This dramatisation, set in London in the late 1950s, finds Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself, Smiley decides to investigate.

Charles has got a part in a new sitcom. It's been a while since he's done comedy and the world has changed enormously; it's now all single camera and darker subject matters. Maurice is thrilled to see Charles getting in with the cool gang rather than clock-watchers counting their pension pots. Charles counts his lines, hears the offer and says yes please! He's also relieved to have an excuse not to model for Frances, who has taken up painting.

With his black hat, huge umbrella, unworldly simplicity and 'beaming but breathless geniality', Father Brown is one of fiction's best-loved amateur detectives. Short and tatty, but with the wisdom and insight to unravel the most wayward of criminal minds, he has entertained generations. In this collection of 13 full-cast dramatisations, the high priest of detection becomes involved in seven intriguing cases that will tax even his mental powers to the limit.

Life is good for Charles Paris. He's moved back in with his estranged wife, and has landed a plum stage role as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. But it can't last. First his attempts to woo Frances fall flat, then the play's director is taken ill with gastric trouble. His replacement, Romanian wunderkind Alex Radelescu, is determined to take the play in a radical new direction—with or without Charles.

Meet The Honourable Richard Rollison—a.k.a the Toff. A debonair aristocrat and ace amateur sleuth, he's the scourge of London's criminal underworld: sometimes working alone, sometimes hand-in-glove with the police. But wherever he goes, he leaves his distinctive calling card: a jaunty caricature featuring a top hat, a monocle, a bow tie and a cigar. In these two gripping thrillers, he finds himself involved in rural intrigue and a wedding-day mystery.

Actor, writer and director Mahesh Dattani is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award by India’s National Academy of Letters. Included here are all three of his plays featuring Uma Rao – PhD student, daughter-in-law of Bangalore's deputy commissioner of police, and wife of the superintendent. Priyanga Burford (neé Elan), stars as the intrepid sleuth, with full casts including Shiv Grewal, Saeed Jaffrey, Ajay Chhabra, Amerjit Deu and Nitin Chandra Ganatra.

Anthony Berkeley was a journalist, novelist, and founding member of the Detection Club - whose members included Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - and was one of crime fiction's greatest innovators, developing the idea of the psychological crime novel in the 1920s and '30s. One of his recurring and most-beloved characters was Roger Sheringham, a novelist and amateur detective. In these two classic tales, Roger Sheringham must investigate two terrible murders

Liz Parker dreams of being a gumshoe, like her hardboiled heroes Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer. But instead, she's stuck as secretary at the Ace Agency, a small-time investigation bureau above a curry house in the backstreets of Birmingham. Her lecherous boss, Mr Antrobus, is too tied up with typist Gloria to pay much attention to the cases that come in - so Liz decides to solve them herself.