Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

Madeline Kramer has finally got her life back on track at top city law firm Sullivan, Blake, Monroe. But when two armed, masked men burst into a conference room one lunchtime, kidnapping a trainee and a partner, Maddy’s life is plunged into disarray once more - particularly when charismatic DCI Jake Carver, who caught a heartless killer when they last met and with whom Maddy shared a mutual chemistry, is called to the scene.

In the autumn of 1615 the Earl and Countess of Somerset were detained on suspicion of having murdered Sir Thomas Overbury. The arrest of these leading court figures created a sensation. The young and beautiful Countess of Somerset had already achieved notoriety when she divorced her first husband in controversial circumstances. The Earl of Somerset was one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, having risen to prominence as the male 'favourite' of James I.

It was a deal to die for. And somebody will. Paul Murray is an ex-Olympic runner, so his training is perfect for the rigours of multimillion-dollar bond trading in the City of London. The pace is breakneck, the smell of success intoxicating. Then the body of his colleague Debbie is fished out of the Thames, and Paul’s world is turned upside down. He begins a dangerous, chaotic tumble into the darker side of trading.

Ben Jewell has hit a breaking point. His 10-year-old son, Jonah, has severe autism, and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope. When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father. In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk, two who won't - are thrown together.

A Charlotte Riddell novella from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Haunted Houses. In The Uninhabited House, the owner of haunted house River Hall is taken to court by one of her tenants for failing to disclose prior spectral possession.

An old SAS comrade finds himself embroiled in a dangerous game. A shadowy group of cyber terrorists have developed a highly dangerous computer virus known as the Prometheus Code. A virus that has the power to completely destabilize European financial systems at the click of a button. Kane's friend Cameron Jordan comes into possession of the Prometheus Code and finds himself at the center of a maelstrom of secret agents, assassins, and government agencies in this edge-of-your-seat action thriller.

On a fine autumn weekend Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist and a mystery novelist. The unlucky 13th is John Foss, injured at the local train station and brought to the house to recuperate - but John is nursing a secret of his own. Soon events take a sinister turn when a painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed and a man strangled.

MI5 agents Marina Griffin and Leo South are made to be together. But their mission's-end encounter with Ashkeloi gypsies in the Russian forest reveals a terrifying prophecy - a fate that will tear them apart, and re-echo into the lives of their sons, John and Mike. Thirty years later, a deadly climate shift has opened up a seaway through the Arctic, and nuclear war is imminent as the global superpowers make a grab for the oil reserves suddenly exposed.

As the Great War grinds to its bloody finale, DI Hardcastle is encumbered with a frustrating and complicated investigation... March, 1918. The Great War is grinding slowly to its bloody finale. Divisional Detective Inspector Ernest Hardcastle, head of the Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police, is called to a body is recovered from the Thames. Mavis Parker, the victim’s attractive widow, proves to be a good-time girl, and to complicate matters, all the suspects seem to be known to each other, including a South African who purports to be an actor.

The new mystery featuring Detective Inspector Hardcastle in this popular First World War series - September 1916. A Zeppelin with a deadly payload is aimed at Victoria station, but when the bombs miss their mark and instead destroy a nearby house in Washbourne Street, mystery ensues for DI Hardcastle. The body of a woman is discovered, who was not only unknown to the tenants of the building but also appears to have died before the bombs were even dropped…

DI Hardcastle tracks a killer who’s left his hat behind... July, 1917. DI Ernest Hardcastle and his assistant, DS Charles Marriott, investigate the murder of a cashier operating in London’s Victoria Station. An army officer claims to have seen the murderer running away, and an army cap left behind appears to identify the criminal. Hardcastle believes that it will be a simple matter to go to Aldershot and arrest him, but things are never as easy as they seem.

A DI Hardcastle Investigation - June 1917. Ernest Hardcastle, head of the Whitehall CID, is called to investigate the murder of Sir Nigel Strang, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Munitions, in his office. Given his work, Hardcastle wonders whether the Germans might be responsible. Then another murder leads Hardcastle to a worker at Woolwich Arsenal, who is suspected of passing information to the enemy. But is there a connection? Hardcastle must find out...

Hardcastle is sent to investigate the murder of Colonel Sir Adrian Rivers, Bt. It seems the baronet's second wife, much younger than Rivers, is neither distressed by the murder, nor able to assist in the investigation. It is up to the dogged Hardcastle, aided by DS Charles Marriott, to question an array of characters and narrowly avoid being killed in a Zeppelin raid, before the killer is eventually unmasked.

The new Detective Inspector Hardcastle mystery - When the body of actress Victoria Hart is found in the early hours of Christmas Day, Hardcastle and Marriotts investigations lead them to the Beaux Belles revue, where a scantily clad Victoria persuaded young men to enlist with the promise of a kiss. It seems the alluring actress had many admirers, and when the recruiting sergeant is found dead, a link to the army can no longer be ignored...

In February 1915, the Great War is still raging on the Western Front, but in Westminster, at the centre of Hardcastle's bailiwick, a policeman is shot dead. At first, Hardcastle believes the murderer to have been a disturbed burglar. But as enquiries continue, attention focuses on an antiquarian bookseller, a struggling artist, a reporter, officers of the Royal Flying Corps, both in England and in France, and the activities of Isabel Plowman, the wife of one of them and the lover of others.

From atop the choppy waves to the choking darkness of the abyss, the seas are full of mystery and rife with tales of inexplicable events and encounters with the unknown. In this anthology we see a thrilling spread of narratives: sailors are pitched against a nightmare from the depths, invisible to the naked eye, a German U-boat commander is tormented by an impossible transmission via Morse Code, a ship ensnares itself in the kelp of the Sargasso Sea and dooms a crew of mutineers, seemingly out of revenge for her lost captain.

Max Jackson, a New Zealander living and lecturing in Paris, has a complicated arrangement with his estranged French wife, Louise. In love with his younger Sorbonne colleague Sylvie, he finds himself entangled with Helen, a troubled young English student. When a Cezanne painting goes missing from Louise's apartment, the boundaries he has struggled to maintain threaten to collapse.

1564, Lisbon. The Inquisition displays its power and ruthlessly spreads fear. Heretics are tortured and burned. Isabela, daughter of the Falconer at the Royal Court, is about to be caught in the Church’s terrifying schemes. The slaughter of two of the King’s precious white falcons sees her father arrested and imprisoned. He and his family will be killed unless the birds are replaced. Isabela decides only she can save her father. These birds are impossibly rare, and she will have to travel far to strange lands to find them.

1957. Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, run a country hotel in the village of Cavendish, deep in the heart of West Sussex. James and Beth are discussing the latest Cavendish Players production, The Devil Incarnate, when their cleaner informs them that farmer Alec Grimes is missing.

The queen of Steelhaven has grown in strength. Taking up her dead father's sword, she must defend the city from the dread warlord Amon Tugha and his bloodthirsty army now at the gates. A vicious, unrelenting four-day battle ensues, the most perilous yet. No side is immune from danger as all hell breaks loose, with the threat of coups and the unleashing of the deadliest and darkest magick. Loyalty, strength and cunning will be put to test in the quest for victory. What fate awaits the free states?