Showing results by narrator "Seán Barrett" in All Categories

While the youth uprising sweeps across Europe, a debate about Franz Kafka appears in student magazines, arguing that publishing the texts Kafka left behind against his will is unfaithful to his legacy. When Kafka's best friend, Brod, is injured in an attempted assassination, assailant Ferdy Kaplan is captured and questioned by Commissioner Muller at the West Berlin police station.

Nothing Like the Sun is a magnificent, bawdy telling of Shakespeare's love life. Starting with the young Will, the novel is a romp that follows Will's maturation into sex and writing. It is at the same time a serious look at the forces that midwife art, the effects of time and place, and the ordinariness that is found side by side with extraordinariness of genius.

Karnstein Castle stands like a bird of prey on the highest point of the hills that surround the village below. A huge monolithic reminder to all those who see it of the power of the family who have lived there for centuries. By day the village of Karnstein is a peaceful place, but by night, an unimaginable evil roams free. Villagers are found dead, their throats ripped open and bodies drained of blood. Young girls disappear and are never seen again.

Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight.

AD 1315. Ireland and England are ravaged by bitter war. Rotting in an English prison, condemned as a heretic, Irish Knight Templar Richard Savage is given one chance of reprieve. But there is a catch. He must return to Ireland as a traitor, and work as a spy there for the king of England.

What does a man do when he discovers a process like Omega Minus? He wishes he hadn't. Scientist James Hallet has the intelligence forces of all the world's major powers on his back, and they're not too particular about how they get their information. They wouldn't, for instance, baulk at the kidnap and torture of Hallet's beautiful blonde mistress. Not if it would give them Omega Minus.

Secrets of the Symbol builds upon the expertise and wisdom of Nobel prize-winning scientists, historians, technologists, and conspiracy theorists to help readers fully understand the mysteries behind The Lost Symbol.

After a tip-off, a man's body is exhumed from a shallow grave in Edinburgh. Murder surely, yet he died from natural causes, so, case closed? Indeed was there ever a case? But Chief Constable Skinner and his people keep on digging. Who was the man, why was he buried so reverentially, and by whom? Meanwhile corruption is discovered within the force, and an investigation launched.

Britannia, 58 AD. Fergus MacAmergin is a man out of place. An Irish Celt, he passes as a Gaul and rides with the Roman cavalry, affirming Nero's control over the province. Fergus dreams of escaping the fetters ofhis birth and living freely as a citizen of Rome. When Fergus's commander makes a battlefield error, Fergus is blamed. He and his men are given a thankless task: a quest that spells danger, despair, and near-certain death. The mission: to find the Holy Lance, the spear that wounded Christ on the Cross.

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.

Scarred by the troubles in Belfast, Billy Nelson returns to his loyalist roots following his discharge from army service. But an outbreak of gang violence forces Billy to move on to Edinburgh, where he muscles in on the capital's drug trade. As the balance of power tips, underworld rivalries between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast spill onto the streets. With a spate of horrific incidents and a trail of victims, the pressure is mounting for Grace Macallan, new superintendent of the Crime & Counter Terrorism Directorate.

5 August 2005. While conducting a secret mission thirty miles off the remote cost of Kamchatka, the Russian Navy submarine AS-28 became snared in the thick cables anchored to 60-tonne concrete blocks. Without power the stricken boat sunk to the seafloor. Trapped too deep to escape her crew now had just seventy two hours before the air onboard ran out. Twenty-four hours later - still haunted by the loss of the Kursk - the Russian Navy requested assistance.

May, 1942. A group of soldiers uncover a tomb in Libya. Buried in the ancient dust they find a macabre crown of thorns and the devastatingly powerful Spear of Destiny. They've discovered the last resting place of Christ. Sixty years on, Gerald Usherwood and his old army pal Max Chippendale reunite with friends and family. Dark shadows visit them in the night and make them pay for the secrets they stole.

A young boy's body is washed from the river and forensic examination reveals he has been murdered. The accidental discovery that a convicted paedophile lives in the nearby village leads to police interest in his activities, and when five decaying bodies are found in his garden, he is arrested.

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.

A long buried and shocking secret has been uncovered. In 1940, President Roosevelt and Canada's Mackenzie King secretly agreed to abandon the Allies and make peace with Hitler if the Nazis successfully invaded Britain. Decades later, Soviet agents are ready to use this information to shatter the NATO alliance and use the ensuing geopolitical chaos to strengthen their position in Europe. Only one man stands in their way.

The first woman had her lungs ripped out. When the same gruesome ritualistic method was used again, it was clear that the same killer was responsible. But there is no precise evidence to link the two cases, except for a tantalising email. Kriminalhauptkommissar Jan Fabel (half-Scottish, half-German) is a man of conscience and imagination. In his desperate attempt to solve the case before more victims are discovered, he gradually uncovers layer upon layer of intrigue.

Glasgow, 1953, is a hard city at a hard time. The war may be over but the battle for the streets is just beginning, and shady investigator Lennox is the man in the middle. The McGahern twins were on the way up until Tam, the brains of the outfit, becomes the victim of a vicious contract killing. Tam's brother Frankie turns to Lennox to find out who killed his twin. Lennox refuses. Later that night, Frankie turns up dead, and Lennox finds himself in the frame for murder.

The Brazen Minotaurs infiltrate an ancient temple-tomb, seeking an artefact sacred to their Chapter, one that could turn the tide of battle in the Imperium's favour. But they are not the first to enter the tomb....

When a polar bear is sighted in a sleepy Icelandic fishing village, then shot dead by local policeman Constable Halldór, it triggers a debate in the local community. Was Halldór a hero for killing the bear, or should the animal have been protected? Animal rights activists in the area see the constable as a villain, and when, days later, the dead body of Halldór is discovered at a remote beauty spot, the activists are immediately under suspicion.