Showing results by narrator "Seán Barrett" in All Categories

Following a previous investigation, which implicated those at the very top in Soviet Russia, Captain Alexei Korolev finds himself hailed as an example to all. But Korolev lives in an uneasy peace - if it is discovered what his real actions were during the case, he will face deportation to Siberia. Instead, Colonel Rodinov of the NKVD security service asks the detective to look into the suspected suicide of a young woman on a film set in the Ukraine. The feared commissar for State Security, Ezhov, wants the matter looked into.

Moscow, 1937. Captain Korolev, a police investigator, is enjoying a long-overdue visit from his young son, Yuri, when an eminent scientist is shot dead within sight of the Kremlin, and Korolev is ordered to find the killer. It soon emerges that the victim, a man who it appears would stop at nothing to fulfil his ambitions, was engaged in research of great interest to those at the very top ranks of Soviet power.

An invitation to stay with childhood friends seems an excellent idea to aid Helena's recovery after her cancer treatment. Helena grew up with the Hickmans and had spent many happy holidays with them. But when a man is found burned to death in a car, the apparently irrelevant though horrific incident creates unexpected disturbances.

Iceland, 2017: When a young Italian tourist is found brutally murdered at a sacred church in northern Iceland, Magnus Jonson, newly returned to the Reykjavík police force, is called in to investigate. At the scene, he finds a stunned TV crew, there to film a documentary on the life of the legendary Viking Gudrid the Wanderer. Magnus quickly begins to suspect that there may be more links to the murdered woman than anyone in the film crew will acknowledge.

Alastair Cunningham wakes up in hospital with almost total amnesia. But he knows that something terrible happened in his past, something that haunts him still. A young family friend, Clemence, is called in to help rekindle his memory. Retreating with Alastair to his remote cottage, Clemence finds a peculiar manuscript hidden away from prying eyes. Reading the prologue, she discovers a murder by someone very much like a young Alastair. The victim? Clemence's grandmother, Sophie.

Thomas Cale has been running from his enemies. Raised and trained in an underground programme - the Sanctuary - he was sent to destroy God's greatest mistake, mankind itself. Cale is a paradox: arrogant and innocent, generous and pitiless. Feared and revered by those that created him, he has already used his terrifying talent for violence and destruction to bring down the most powerful civilisation in the world. But Thomas Cale has been caught.

Just as a major environmental summit is about to start in Hamburg, a massive storm hits the city. When the flood waters recede, a headless torso is found washed up. Initially, Jan Fabel fears it may be another victim of a serial rapist and murderer who stalks his victims, then dumps their bodies in waterways around the city. But the truth of the situation is far more complex. Fabel’s investigations lead him to a secretive environmental Doomsday cult called “Pharos”, the brainchild of a reclusive, crippled billionaire.

In Istanbul - the golden city on the Bosphorus - ancient myths and modern evils are at work.... On a buzzing street in the fashionable district of Beyoglu, a young man drops dead. Ümit Kavas' death was natural, but the autopsy betrays a shocking truth: his last meal was human flesh. Under desperate pressure from their superiors, Inspector Cetin Ikmen and his colleague, Mehmet Süleyman, begin their most obscure investigation yet.

Fredrik Welin is a 70-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire. Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson.

Iceland 1934: Two boys playing see something they shouldn't have. The consequences will haunt them and their families for generations. Iceland 2009: the credit crunch bites. The currency has been devalued, savings annihilated, lives ruined. Grassroots revolution is in the air, as is the feeling that someone ought to pay.... And in a country where everyone knows everybody, it isn't hard to draw up a list of exactly who is responsible. And then, one by one, to cross them off.

They are voices lost to time. Beginning in the late 1970s, five veteran airmen sat for private interviews. Decades after the guns fell silent, they recounted in vivid detail the most dangerous missions that made the difference in the war. Ed Haydon dueled with the deadliest of German aces - and forced him to the ground. Robert Johnson racked up 27 kills in his P-47 Thunderbolt, but nearly lost his life when his plane was shot to ribbons and his guns jammed. Cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay was the Air Corps general who devised the bomber tactics that pummeled Germany's war machine.

Oliver Reed may not have been Britain's biggest film star - for a period in the early 70s he came within a hairsbreadth of replacing Sean Connery as James Bond - but he is an august member of that small band of people, like George Best and Eric Morecambe, who transcended their chosen medium, became too big for it even, and grew into cultural icons. For the first time Reed's close family has agreed to collaborate on a project about the man himself.

1976, war-torn Beirut. Under the cover of a massive firefight, an unknown band of armed men blast their way into the Imperial Bank of Beirut. Over the next 48 hours they load up three trucks with gold bullion, and the raiders and the loot disappear forever. Two weeks earlier, a young SAS Major newly arrived in The Regiment had tasked his men with scoping out just such a Beirut bank robbery - strictly as an exercise only.

When 16-year-old Dísa is given five bitcoin by her divorced father she is unimpressed. But a year later, when her grandparents are about to lose their farm near the Icelandic village of Dalvik, quiet, unassuming Dísa is able to rescue it with the profits from her astute trading of her father's gift. Unknown to Dísa, her mother Helga catches the cryptocurrency bug. Not only does Helga invest in Thomocoin, a new cryptocurrency sweeping Iceland, but she persuades many of her neighbours in Dalvík to invest too, taking a cut for herself.

In the picturesque Tuscan hill town of Scandicci, the body of a girl is discovered. Scantily dressed, she is lying by the edge of the woods. The local police investigate the case - but after a week, they still haven’t even identified her, let alone got to the bottom of how she died. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of Florence’s elite Squadra Mobile, decides to step in.

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed, for most of its inhabitants, stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War.

In January 2014 I was informed that I had cancer. However, Quicksand is not a book about death and destruction but about what it means to be human. I have undertaken a journey from my childhood to the man I am today, writing about the key events in my life and about the people who have given me new perspectives. About men and women I have never met but wish I had. I write about love and jealousy, about courage and fear. And about what it is like to live with a potentially fatal illness.

In a remote part of 19th-century Afghanistan, two British adventurers pursue their ambition to rule an empire. Using betrayal, threats, and guns, they win the respect of a primitive tribe and become worshipped as gods until one day they draw blood, and the game is up. "The Man Who Would Be King" is an action-packed tale about the pitfalls of colonialism and the temptations and evils of power.

Cast out from the Kyivan Rus, Harald Sigurdsson’s quest for fame and fortune takes him to the far reaches of Europe; the lands of the Eastern Roman empire. The empire is dying the slow death of decay and corruption. In desperation to fend off a myriad of foes, the emperor turns to the legendary Varangian guard for salvation. These deadly warriors from the far north, famed for their fearsome steel and battle skill, have become the empire's greatest protectors. From the golden gate of Constantinople to the holy waters of the river Jordan, Harald will march with the emperor's finest.

FreeFlow is a group of activists dedicated to freedom of information. They have evidence of a military atrocity in the Middle East and are preparing to unleash it. On the glacial rim of an erupting volcano, they christen their endeavour Operation Meltwater. Minutes later, one of them is murdered. Magnus Jonson has a long list of suspects but he’s getting little help - for a group dedicated to transparency, they’re a secretive bunch. But they are not the only ones with secrets. Asta, a newly qualified priest, has contacted FreeFlow with damning information about the former Bishop of Iceland.