Showing results by narrator "Caroline Guthrie" in All Categories

Afghanistan, 2009. Eighteen-year-old squaddie Briggsy is just three weeks into his first posting in Helmand Province and he's thrilled to be part of the action. But when his Rifle Section loses a man in battle, Briggsy is forced to confront the realities of war. Also included is the fascinating interview with Andy McNab, in which he speaks to Jo Fidgen about his childhood, military career and writing.

In 1891, Edinburgh's Henderson Close is a seething mass of humanity, poverty, crime, and degradation. Even murder. Miss Carmichael is a middle-aged spinster, living in the prosperous New Town. She regularly takes food, money, and clothing to families living in the Closes, deep within the slums of the Old Town. In the present day, Henderson Close, having been buried under the foundations of newer buildings a century earlier, is a major tourist attraction. In the depths of Edinburgh, an evil presence is released.

"You can do anything if you have nothing left to lose." Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her teenage son, Ellie lives in the shadows of the Forth Road Bridge, lingering on its footpaths and swimming in the waters below. One day she talks down another suicidal teenager, Sam, and sees for herself a shot at redemption, the chance to atone for her son's death. But even with the best intentions, she can't foresee the situation she's falling headlong into - a troubled family, with some very dark secrets of their own.

In a time of raids and ransoms, Aidan MacLeod is responsible for a formidable Scottish keep and all the people within. Yet the fearless Highland laird never forgets his charge to shield his young half-brother from the grave consequences of his tragic birth.Linked By FateBut an alluring stranger known only as Syrena could undo all of Aidan's defenses. For Syrena has vowed to bring Aidan's brother to a realm far from the Scotland of their understanding. To succeed, she is at Aidan's mercy.

First he kills. A psychologist is found brutally murdered, an addict jumps to his death and a student is found dead. These are the facts. And they are all that DIs Wheeler and Ross have. He waits. As Wheeler and Ross weave through the layers of Glasgow’s underbelly, they find a subculture where truth and lies are interchangeable commodities, and violence is the favoured currency. He watches. The killer stays one step ahead of them.

Juliet is used to wielding power and influence in her line of work, but when her beloved niece dies, she finds herself powerless in the face of her grief and has doubts over the coroner’s report of suicide. She travels back to her family’s remote coastal home where Beth was found. As Juliet delves deeper into the investigation, her personal and professional lives collide, and she unwittingly finds herself pitted against dangerous opposition who seem intent on silencing her.

In a remote hill farm in beautiful Scotland, Ellen and her father Duncan are enjoying a peaceful life. In time they're joined by rugged farmhand Tom, come to lend some muscle to Ellen's ageing father. Almost inevitably romance grows between Ellen and the new arrival but once married however, Ellen discovers that Tom has a brutish side to his character.

Justine is running for her life. Escaping a city and a man, she heads north to the valleys of the Highlands. Michael and Hannah are also running, with their two sons and their tattered marriage. They are looking for somewhere they can call home. In an ancient landscape, a shocking accident causes their lives to intertwine. Tangled together in threads of guilt and love, with Scotland rushing towards a referendum and the community fracturing, they must all face their ghosts.

He buried his victim alive. And now he's escaped from prison and is on the run in the city. Fiona Henderson, the daughter of the victim who'd descended into a world of silence following her mother's murder, has gone missing. Her sister, Annabelle, scours the city in a desperate attempt to find her. And then the body of a homeless person is found among the rubbish in a deserted alleyway. As DIs Wheeler and Ross investigate, more suspicious deaths occur, and a pattern emerges.

When Anna Cameron is promoted to Chief Inspector and moved to a new division, it should be a turning point for her. Then her mother goes into a coma in a foreign country and an old woman disappears from a Glasgow care home under suspicious circumstances, and Anna's career and personal life both threaten to implode. The gang-related murder of a young Asian boy and an assault on one of her officers only serve to turn the screws tighter – can Anna be both a good cop and a good person?

The warm, funny memoir of Gregor Fisher, the much loved Scottish actor best known for Rab C. Nesbitt, told as he uncovers his dramatic family history. Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told that he was adopted. But it wasn't quite that simple. And so began an unfolding of truths, half truths and polite cover-ups from his various families.

'You need to get back in the saddle…' Alice despises that phrase. She's fine being single – with two slothful teenage boys and a meringue business to run, she has enough on her plate without negotiating the troublesome world of modern dating. However, Alice's three best friends have other ideas. Each one will present her with an utterly delicious, eligible man – all Alice has to do is pick her favourite.

Jamie Worth, a newly qualified firearms officer, is called to a domestic disturbance. Events get out of hand, and he shoots and kills a teenaged girl who appears to have been unarmed. Already wracked with guilt, he is horrified when, with the media baying for blood, he is accused of murder. How can a police officer survive when he suddenly finds himself in prison and on the wrong side of the law? And how can his wife Cath and his ex Anna ever come to terms with what has happened?

When the residents of a Highland care home discover that the new owners are about to put up the fees substantially they know that dramatic action is called for. But what can a group of senior citizens do against a big organisation? For Dorothy, the situation is serious, if she can't raise the money she'll have to leave her friends, like dear Miss Ross. In protest, the residents barricade themselves into the lounge. However, their rebellion fails! So worldly wise Joan suggests a most unusual way to cover the rise....

Meet Martha. It's the first day of her new job as an intern at Edinburgh's The Standard. But all's not well at the ailing newspaper, and Martha is carrying some serious baggage of her own. Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on the phone, something which echoes with her own troubled past, setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh.

A tender and sad BBC Radio 4 comedy drama about losing your past, starring Richard Briers. 'The Moment You Feel It' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 18 May 2009. Alf's memories come in flashes with great blank holes, along with a running commentary from the voices of his past...

Philippa is a librarian from a long line of librarians. When her father dies and her mother loses her wits, Philippa tries the only language Vera understands, that of the Dewey cataloguing system, to guide her back to sanity. Starring Olivia Colman as Philippa, Sheila Reid as Vera, Caroline...

This is a book about memories, love, sex and the power of the imagination to see us through the most difficult times. The women of Reality, Reality are mesmerising, whether in love or in solitude. Jackie Kay’s newest and most luminous of collections is full of compassion, generosity, sorrow, and joy. In 15 extraordinary stories, she celebrates the richness and power of dream-life to inspire, to repair, and to make real.

In Jackie Kay’s first collection of stories, ordinary lives are transformed by secrets. Her world might seem familiar – sex, death and family cast long shadows – but the roles of mothers, daughters and lovers are imagined and revealed in the most surprising of ways. Jackie Kay sees the extraordinary in everyday life, and lights it up with humour and generosity in a way that is uniquely her own.

She'll find him a bride if it's the last thing she does. And it very well might be. Evangeline may be powerfully persuasive in her way, but convincing the notoriously wild Highland king Lachlan MacLeod to strengthen his alliances with a strategic marriage seems to be asking the impossible. Stubborn and proud, Lachlan seems determined to go against her will, even if it means endangering the people he's sworn to protect and the enchanted isle that has already seen so much discord. Yet the battle-scarred Highlander cannot ignore his sultry advisor for long.