Showing results by narrator "Philip Franks" in All Categories

Constable Nick patrols his rural Yorkshire beat on foot or on his trusty Francis Barnett motorcycle. But as beautiful as the villages are, they conceal real human drama. Nick is on hand to help out when Aidensfield decides to enter the Best Kept Village competition and finds itself the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by its rivals. Then there is the mystery of the spontaneously combusting henhouse, and Nick has to cope with the consequences when the vicar tries a novel way of keeping the churchyard tidy.

Britain's most popular bobby gets back on the beat. Constable Nick proves once again that a policeman's lot on the windswept heather-clad moors of North Yorkshire was a very happy one. In this delightful collection of tales of "Daffodil Duty" and "Sheep Worrying", his duties are as varied and humorous as ever. Young Nick joins Albert Potter for a drink and discovers his homemade moorland wines are a headache in every sense of the word.

The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence - but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish.... Scales of Justice was first published in 1955.

When Mattie Harris' body is found drowned in the river, everyone in Lydmouth knows something is wrong. Mattie wasn't a swimmer - it can't have been a simple accident. She was drunk on the last night of her life - could she have fallen in? Or was she pushed? Mattie was a waitress, so when Lydmouth's most prominent citizens become very anxious to establish that her death was accidental, Jill Francis' suspicions become roused. In the meantime she is becoming ever closer to Inspector Richard Thornhill and discovering that the living have as many secrets as the dead.

The Challenge of Things joins earlier collections like The Reason of Things and Thinking of Answers but this time to collect Grayling's recent writings on the world in a time of war and conflict. In describing and exposing the dark side of things, he also explores ways out of the habits and prejudices of mind that would otherwise trap us forever in the deadly impasses of conflicts of all kinds.

Miss Mackenzie by Trollope was the runner-up in Radio 4's 'Neglected Classics' vote. Margaret Mackenzie is a single woman in her mid-thirties who receives a large inheritance when her brother dies. She must then deal with what comes with the fortune, including several suitors, who may, or, may not, simply be after her money.

The work of Britain’s most popular copper is never done. Constable Nick’s happy beat in the North Yorkshire moors takes a watery turn when a bevy of bathing beauties causes a disturbance in local waterways. Meanwhile, he has to cope with an array of eccentric characters: a postman who can’t read, a helpful woman who steals from the elderly people in her care and a delightful small-time villain called Tin Lid Talbot. Plus, between winning an aged tin of sardines in a local raffle and getting first prize at the local whist drive, he’s in danger of upsetting the villagers.

First he considers moments in history - Periclean Athens, the English Civil War, the American and French Revolutions, among them - in which the challenges we face today were first encountered and what solutions, however imperfect, were found. Then he lays bare the specific problems of democracy in the 21st century and maps out a set of urgently needed reforms. With the advent of authoritarian leaders and the simultaneous rise of populism, representative democracy appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place, yet it is this space that it must occupy, says Grayling, if a civilised society that looks after all its people is to flourish.

During a break from his usual village beat, young Police Constable Nick finds himself involved with holidaymakers and their problems. As well as the normal seaside duties, how does he cope with a man who’s lost his false teeth in the sea and another who wants to give away thousands of pounds when drunk? Then there's the stray Labrador that thinks he's a police dog and accompanies police officers on night patrols and the anxious fisherman who daren't tell his wife that he owns a racehorse.

On November 12, 1912, a rescue team trekking across Antarctica's Great Ice Barrier finally found what they sought - the snow-covered tent of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Inside, they made a grim discovery: Scott's frozen body lay between the bodies of two fellow explorers. They had died just eleven miles from the depot of supplies which might have saved them.

When a spinster of the parish is found bludgeoned to death in St John's, and the church's most valuable possession, the Lydmouth chalice, is missing, the finger of suspicion points at the new vicar, who is already beset with problems. The glare of the police investigation reveals shabby secrets and private griefs. Jill Francis, struggling to find her feet in her new life, stumbles into the case at the beginning. But even a journalist cannot always watch from the sidelines.

Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. Britain is basking in the warm glow of postwar tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toy shop.

From the number one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fourth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. The Korean war rumbles in the background throughout this novel as a reporter is found murdered at the Bathurst Arms, squatters are evicted from a military camp and there are new developments in the three-year-old hunt for a missing teenager. And in spite of all that's going on, Jill Francis, a local journalist, and DI Richard Thornhill find they can no longer resist their feelings for each other.

In 1946, June and Bernard set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they had planned an idyllic holiday, but in France they witness an event that alters the course of their lives entirely. Forty years on, their son-in-law is trying to uncover the cause of their estrangement and is led back to this moment on honeymoon and an experience of such darkness it was to wrench the couple apart.

Britain's most popular bobby turns detective! A delightful account of Constable Nick’s foray into the CID, or as he thinks of it, Constable In Disguise. Nick joins the Criminal Investigation Department to learn about the work of the detectives in civilian clothes. Asked to keep a watchful eye on a house thought to be used as a brothel, Nick quietly climbs the roof and sends a tile crashing through the window. When the woman inside and her five brothers attack the neighbours for causing the damage, the police turn out in force and arrest everybody. Meanwhile Nick lies low on the roof.

An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome. Her distraught husband enlists the help of his closest friend, Chris Bronson, who discovers an ancient inscription on a slab of stone above their fireplace. But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying to protect? Pursued across Europe, Bronson uncovers a trail of clues that leads him back to the shadowy beginnings of Christianity; to a chalice decorated with mysterious symbols; to a secret code hidden within a scroll. And to a deadly conspiracy which – if revealed – will rock the foundations of our modern world.

Nick is settling into his role as a police constable in Aidensfield, getting to grips with rural life and his new colleagues and neighbours. Constable Nick maintains his warm approach through the village's many incidents, whether it's the historic tradition of the First Footing on New Year's Eve or the scandal of an undug grave. More problems stem from the unlawful activities of Arnold Merryweather's bus, with its imposing conductress, Hannah, a jockey who steals supplies for his hungry horse and the old railway worker who vanishes as the last train passes through the village.

England in the 14th Century. Twelve-year-old Robin’s world is turned upside down when his father, the Earl of Waringham, dies in disgrace. His inheritance lost and his family name dishonoured, the penniless Robin must begin a new life as a peasant on his own estate. He soon makes an enemy in Mortimer, the spoiled young son of the new Earl. As the years pass and the boys enter adulthood, Robin flees Waringham to seek his fortune abroad.

The Psychology of Conflict is a timely new contribution on the unique benefits of applying philosophy and psychology to mediating between people in conflict. Following his previous book with Dr. Freddie Strasser - Mediation: A Psychological Insight into Conflict Resolution - Paul Randolph here examines the application of existential philosophy to the psychology of conflict, particularly as seen in mediation.

Trapped in a London flat, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster’s cottage, miles from Moscow. A father, finally free of his daughter’s demands, embarks on a long swim from his Canadian lakeside retreat. And in the grandest house of all, Danni the Polish housekeeper catches the eye of an enigmatic visitor.Rose Tremain awakens the senses in this diverse collection of short stories.