Showing results by narrator "Piers Hampton" in All Categories

A lost civilisation. A curse reborn. Dr Ben Kazin has only a blurred photograph and a gut instinct that there is a lost city to uncover somewhere beneath the Botswana cliffs. Soon, a whispered curse and a chance encounter with a local tribe lead him to discover much more than city foundations. The curse, it seems, is real, and will link Ben, his oldest friend and the woman they both love with a forgotten leader from 2,000 years ago, in a city of glory and honour that subsequently disappeared without a trace.

McQueen had risen from humble beginnings as the youngest child of an East London taxi driver to scale the heights of fame, fortune and glamour. He designed clothes for the world's most beautiful women, including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. In business he created a multimillion-pound luxury brand that became a favourite with both celebrities and royalty, most famously the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a McQueen dress on her wedding day. But behind the confident facade and bad-boy image lay a sensitive soul who struggled to survive in the ruthless world of fashion.

Promoted to the elite Praetorian Guard in the thick of battle, a young legionary is thrust into a seedy world of imperial politics and corruption. Tasked with uncovering a plot against the newly crowned Emperor Commodus, his mission takes him from the cold Danubian border all the way to the heart of Rome, the villa of the Emperor’s scheming sister, and the great Colosseum. What seems a straightforward, if terrifying, assignment soon descends into Machiavellian treachery and peril as everything in which young Rufinus trusts and believes is called into question....

The exclusive behind-the-scenes story of the Mauricio Pochettino revolution at Spurs, told in his own words Since joining the club in 2014, Mauricio Pochettino has transformed Tottenham from underachievers into genuine title contenders. In the process, he has marked himself out as one of the...

Two years have passed since the emperor's loyal Praetorian guardsman Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus foiled Lucilla's great assassination plot. Plagued by the ghosts of his past, Rufinus has enacted his own form of justice upon the Praetorian cavalrymen who murdered the imperial agent Dis two years earlier. But the Fates will not let Rufinus rest. Rome is beginning to seethe with rumour and conspiracy as Perennis, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and Cleander, the imperial chamberlain, continue to play their ‘great game'.

The villain Cleander has fallen, his wickedness gone from the imperial court, but his influence lives on. Amongst the Praetorians, a network of spies, killers and thieves remain, clawing on to the power they have enjoyed. Rufinus, returned to the Guard at the hands of the devious Frumentarii, Rome’s imperial secret service, is intent on bringing the entire web of villainy to justice. But Commodus’s reign falters and Rome is in peril. Wolves are at the door and every man with power prepares to make a bid for the purple.

The empire is settled from its civil wars with a strong new ruler in Septimius Severus, and while the emperor campaigns in the east, a cohort of Praetorians has been left in control of Rome under Rufinus, now a tribune of the Guard. But adventure calls once more, as Rufinus receives a worrying letter that sends him on a quest in the north, which will take him and his new faithful companion to the edge of empire, where he will uncover a secret that puts the whole world in danger.

Rome has a new emperor; a strong emperor. Septimius Severus, a lion of the battlefield, now moves east to face the usurper Pescennius Niger, contesting with a clever opponent with the ultimate prize in the balance: the throne of Rome. But with civil war raging all across the East, problems abound. One of the frumentarii, the emperor's military agents, has gone missing in Arabia, and with him has gone a list of the service's personnel.

Rufinus is dead, crumpled at the base of a cliff in far-off Dacia. Or so the world believes. Back in the west, secretly in the entourage of the fierce Septimius Severus, the young hero moves in the shadows with fellow conspirators in an attempt to finally bring down the would-be tyrant of Rome: Cleander. Under assumed names and in a variety of roles, the former Praetorian conspires with some of the most important men in Rome, bringing the city to the very brink of disaster in a grand and complex plot to cause the fall of the untouchable chamberlain.

At the mercy of the scheming Imperial Chamberlain, Cleander, Rufinus is dispatched to Dacia, a land of untamed beauty at the edge of the Roman world, with orders to investigate the two legionary commanders there for signs of treason. Uncertain what to expect from his mission, the two generals, or the land itself, Rufinus travels east with Senova and his faithful hound, Acheron. But machinations and skullduggery are afoot in Dacia, and the young praetorian is walking into the heart of empire-changing events.

The First World War was the defining event of the last century. It claimed the lives of more than 16 million people across the globe and had an enormous impact on all who experienced it. No nation in Europe was left untouched and even neutral states felt its devastating impact. Yet it was the ordinary men and women who were affected the most. This gripping, revealing and poignant collection of stories tells the First World War from the perspective of those who were there, using letters, diaries and memoirs from Imperial War Museum's unparalleled archives.

Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince. But even princes from faraway planets eventually grow up. No longer content with his tiny planet, the young prince sets off once again to explore the universe. And so begins another remarkable journey into the secrets and joys of living a meaningful life. This wonderful sequel to the beloved classic overflows with love and wisdom, a true celebration of life as it should be lived in all its beauty and joy.

Lynx and the rest of the Cards are heading south. There's money in their pockets, beer in their hands and a simple job ahead - sun, sea and not getting shot at much. Throw in the prospect of a bar fight and it's almost a holiday. But the volatile Mage Islands are a powder-keg, one just waiting for a spark. A bloody-handed exile perhaps, or the agent of a foreign power preparing for war. Maybe even a bunch of trigger-happy drunks who've upset the balance of magic across the Riven Kingdom. Or all three together, that'd definitely work....

I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself.... New York has become the City of Dreadful Night where dissolute Leilah performs a dance of chaos for Evelyn.

In The Title, Scott Murray delivers a lively, cherry-picked history of the country's football narrative through the prism of the old First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious ramble across English football's varied terrain. With as much about Preston, Burnley, Wolves, Portsmouth and West Brom as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop - the smallest club to ever play top-flight football.

At the public execution of the anarchist assassin Laurent Moreau, the outgoing Chief Inspector warns his protégé, the newly promoted Lefebvre: “I’ve heard that some of Moreau’s cronies have sworn revenge. You don’t want to get killed your first week as chief.” Meanwhile, Lefebvre is charged with investigating the disappearance of the Baron de Livet, a brash millionaire with connections to Russian spies and a history of gambling, womanizing, and fighting in duels. The case is more complicated than it seems, of course....

People everywhere feel ever more alienated from - and mistrustful of - news and those who make it. We no longer seem to know who or what to believe. We are living through a crisis of 'information chaos'. News: And How to Use It is a glossary for this bewildering age. From AI to bots, from climate crisis to fake news, from clickbait to trolls (and more), here is the definitive user's guide for how to stay informed, tell truth from fiction and hold those in power accountable in the modern age.

An all-too-plausible terrorist plot to destroy the Houses of Parliament brings into focus much greater problems than the differences between two cultures in this gripping thriller from a former commissioned officer in the Parachute Regiment.

In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde, he became famous for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his unique ways of putting them into practice. Convinced that 'telling stories is telling lies' and that he should write about 'nothing else but what happens to me', Johnson produced Trawl.

A gripping and explosive psychological thriller about a young woman who disappears in suspicious circumstances, having been hounded by a vicious online troll. Years ago, Fortune gave up on his daughter, Sophie, after a troubled adolescence. Now she's gone missing, vanished without trace. And after weeks of investigation, the police have given up on her, too. Driven by guilt, and a determination to atone for his failures as a father, he takes on the search himself.