Showing results by narrator "Sean Barrett" in All Categories

Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject.

In the heat of a Greek island summer, some slake their thirsts with cool, clear water. Others prefer something stronger, but disgraced government minister Gikas Fragolis has taken his love of the bottle too far. His habitual drunkenness has cost him his job and lost him many friends - but is it at the root of an enemy's wish to see him dead? In this first short story featuring the enigmatic Greek detective, Hermes Diaktoros uncovers good intentions gone bad and plumbs the murky depths of human nature for an unlikely killer.

An unsettling collection of full-cast dramas from the long-running BBC Radio 4 horror series. Throughout five series of Fear on 4 from 1988-1997, Edward de Souza was The Man in Black, a sinister raconteur who introduced a weekly half-hour of terror and suspense. Here, he welcomes us to his house...

When Mark Hartmann is asked to perform a post-mortem on a lab assistant killed by cancer, everything looks straightforward. But his initial findings are surprising: Millicent Sweet appears to have died of several different, aggressive tumours. Before he can discuss this with colleagues, he's called to a conference in Scotland. A serious error of judgement gives a pharmaceutical company a handle on him, and they threaten to expose his excesses unless he falsifies his report on Sweet.

On the world of Amadis, veteran Imperial Guard officer Regan Antigone is being honoured for his role in the planet's liberation from the forces of Chaos, some 25 years earlier. But when his old comrade, Master Tigrane of the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, arrives to join the festivities and asks to hear the glorious tale told once more, Antigone falters.

Here, collected in one volume and chosen by the author himself, are favorites such as "What Kind of Day Did You Have?", "Leaving the Yellow House", and a previously uncollected piece, "By the St. Lawrence". With his larger-than-life characters, irony, wisdom, and unique humor, Bellow presents a sharp, rich, and funny world that is infinitely surprising. With a preface by Janice Bellow and an introduction by James Wood, this is a collection to treasure for longtime Saul Bellow fans and an excellent introduction for new listeners.

When Ates Bocuk, son of a feared Istanbul gang leader, is arrested for the brutal murder of his Roma lover, feelings of vengeance are ignited among rival Turkish gangs and the Roma community. Forensic evidence is stacked against him, but Ates refuses to speak, and Inspector Suleyman suspects that there is more to the case than meets the eye. Then Cetin Ikmen discovers that Ates is psychotic and believes that everyone in his life is an imposter, which suggests that Ates might in fact be a victim of a far more sinister game.

Charlo Torp has problems. He’s grieving for his late wife, he’s lost his job, and gambling debts have alienated him from his teenage daughter. Desperate, his solution is to rob an elderly woman of her money and silverware. But Harriet Krohn fights back, and Charlo loses control. Wracked with...

The life of Franz Schubert has been a gift to romantically inclined biographers: the beautiful, brilliant, modest boy who sprang to fully fledged genius at the age of sixteen; the quintessential ‘artist in a garret’, entirely consumed by his art and living a hand-to-mouth existence in Vienna (home of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven); the gentle, cheerful, convivial young man who prized friendship almost as highly as music itself; the unworldly poet from whom great music poured like water from a fountain; the unrecognized master who died almost penniless at the age of 31.

For fans of Scandinavian crime, Intrigo is the gripping collection of Håkan Nesser’s best novellas and short stories, three of which have been adapted into major motion pictures. Set in the fictional city of Maardam, each story is linked by themes of secrets coming to light, lies being...

The twenty-eighth mystery featuring Çetin İkmen and Mehmet Süleyman, stars of BBC Two's gripping crime drama series The Turkish Detective, available to watch on BBC iPlayer. When two women are found dead in Istanbul - one bitten by a snake in the slum quarter of Kuştepe, the other killed by...

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Sea Fever is the sixth mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. A rare and unrecorded sea bird captures all the birders...

The Irish are known the world over as friendly and engaging talkers with a word here and a few words there to each and every soul they meet. Their poets dazzle with talent and verse that few other nations dare compete with. What follows demonstrates why.

Grendel prowled in, hating all men and all joy and hungry for human life. So swift was his attack that no man heard an outcry; but when the dawn came, thirty of Hothgar's best and noblest thanes were missing. Only Beowulf, foremost among warriors, has the strength and courage to battle with Grendel the Night-stalker....

The long, drawn-out case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce provides the background to this novel, which takes us into Dickens' world of impoverished people on the street, lovers fallen on hard times, and the grand riches of the upper classes. It is read movingly by Sean Barrett.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS distract the Nazis to allow airborne landings to go ahead? September 1944: in the wake of the successful ‘Anvil’ landings, the Allies plan airborne landings in the Orléans Gap. To ‘soften’ the enemy beforehand, they decide to drop a...

In a huge old schoolhouse by the sea, full of precious paintings, Thomas Porteous is dying. His much younger wife, Di, holds him and mourns. She knows that soon, despite her being his sole inheritor, Thomas' relatives will descend on the collection that was the passion of both of their lives. And descend they do. The two needy daughters, who were poisoned against their father by their defecting mother, are now poisoning themselves. The family regard Thomas' wealth as theirs by right, with the exception of young Patrick, who adored his grandfather and is torn between his parents and Di, the interloper.

Barnaby Rudge, one of only two historical novels by Dickens, deals with the "Popery" riots of 1780. It is read here by one of Britain's most popular readers, Sean Barrett, whose reading of Bleak House was widely praised. This recording is part of the extended Dickens collection offered in both abridged and unabridged form by Naxos AudioBooks.

All over Britain, POW camps are filling up with defeated German soldiers. But only the most dangerous are sent to Camp 21 - 'black' prisoners - SS diehards who've sworn death before surrender. As one fanatic plots a mass breakout and glorious march on London, Max Hartmann dreams of the oath he pledged to the teenage bride he scarcely knows and the child he's never met. Where do his loyalties really lie?

‘That time is upon us. I can feel it coming. That evil barbarian will not be satisfied until he has engulfed the whole world in war and death. I fear for us all.’ In a triumphant return to his much-loved Courtney series, Wilbur Smith introduces us to the bravest new member of the famed...