Showing results by narrator "Ben Onwukwe" in All Categories

It is 1948, and post-war Britain is on her knees. The call has gone out to the British Empire for volunteers to help rebuild the Mother Country, and young men and women from across the Caribbean have been quick to respond, paying the considerable sum of £28.10s to board HMT Empire Windrush. As five hundred disparate passengers begin the two-week voyage, it becomes clear that their lives will never be the same again.

Alex and Morven have a pretty perfect marriage. Still madly in love after ten years, they have no secrets from each other and their life in London with daughter Poppy is...happy. Until one day it changes. Morven disappears, her car found abandoned. The police come around to Alex's house to tell him things about his wife he never knew: her real name, her past life, the secrets she kept from him. And Alex realises he's been loving a lie.

The real nightmare begins when the missing person returns. PC Gareth Bell is about to arrest a cocaine dealer on Brighton Marina, when he makes a shocking discovery that turns his world upside down: the dealer is his long-lost brother, Jake, someone he thought had died years ago. But their reunion is short lived. For Jake is on the run from a cold-blooded killer, whose network reaches all the way into the police force itself. Now that his brother’s life is on the line, Bell has only two choices. Family, or duty?

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Murder by the Book. A devotee of Sherlock Holmes and prominent Sherlockian scholar, S.C. Roberts wrote several works about Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective. In this story, Holmes and Watson are tasked with discovering who is stealing large quantities of books from the circulation library of a London club. With no clear suspect or motive, Holmes must rely on clues that are hidden in plain sight.

A struggling writer battles constant interruptions during his day, until a final visit from unexpected guests pushes him to his breaking point. A tongue-in-cheek nod to Edmund Crispin’s own troubles as a writer, this short story is both an ironic commentary on what it means to ‘work for yourself’ and arguably one of Crispin’s most personal pieces of crime fiction.

PC Gareth Bell watches the psychopath who stabbed Bell’s partner stroll out of court a free man. Somebody on the inside tampered with the evidence, and now one of Brighton’s most dangerous criminals is back on the streets again. Bell’s personal mission for revenge takes him onto the other side of the law and into the dark, violent underworld of the glamourous seaside city. Soon he faces a horrifying choice: risk everything he holds dear, or let the man who tried to kill his partner walk free.

In today's throwaway culture, there's a counter movement growing that urges us to 'make do and mend'. The Repair Shop has brought this waste-conscious message to an even wider audience, with its regular viewing figures of seven million in the UK alone, cementing itself as a classic series in the vein of Antiques Roadshow. This new book concentrates on the show's much-loved experts. Each of the experts shares their own stories and their repairs, capturing in the process the magic and ethos of the barn.

When a collector acquires an old Spanish rapier cheap from an antiques dealer, he thinks he’s got himself a bargain. But he soon realises why the dealer wanted a quick sale.

When a Londoner retreats to the Cornish Coast for a break, he encounters a veiled woman. Could it be the ghost of intrepid explorer Miss Alice Trellings, who disappeared whilst staying at the hotel?

‘A Wicked Voice’ reuses the theme of music from beyond the grave from Vernon Lee’s first ghost story, ‘Winthrop’s Adventure’. Here, young composer Magnus is writing an opera, determined to go against the conventions of his predecessors, but he soon finds himself haunted by a voice beyond the grave which overpowers him and stops him writing.

Englishman Essart is enjoying his holiday in Portugal when he is enchanted by a mysterious fragrance. The scent makes him long for a woman, and he finds himself drawn into the trees in the hope of finding someone there.

In this short story, Captain Chisholm’s pride and joy, The Swordfish, is taken from him by a mutinous crew. But the sea seems to take matters into its own hands to reunite the old captain with his beloved ship.

Set along the Great Barrier Reef, ‘The Black Bell Buoy’ recalls the story of two members of the Marine Board who were sent to secure a giant buoy near a dangerous piece of coral. Only one man makes it home though as rumours of a hideous octopus abound.

Reported to be an account of a real haunting experienced by the author at a house in Rye, this story features fleeting glimpses of an apparition in a walled garden.

When Philip Hope discovers that his wife, Sybil, is having an affair with his secretary, Julian, he takes great delight in thwarting their affections. Just as Philip dismisses his secretary, though, he falls from a cliff, and Julian doesn’t save him. Now free to be together, Sybil and Julian return to the place Philip died, but it becomes clear that Philip is not finished with them yet as he haunts their honeymoon.

Brain surgeon Dr Francis Assheton is sceptical when one of his oldest friends holds a séance to show him ‘The Thing’ that has been appearing at his home. But when he witnesses it for himself and his friend then dies in mysterious circumstances, the doctor must recount his tale before it is too late.

‘The Outcast’ tells the story of Mrs Bertha Acres, who is handsome and charming company, but inspires horror and dread in all who meet her, most notably her husband who killed himself after only a month of marriage. She starts afresh in a new village, but she is cursed to always be an outcast.

Intrigued by other sailors’ superstitions of a cursed island, Sam Lenartson rows out to see for himself. Once there, he discovers an abandoned house with a mysterious tenant.

Recognising Black British experience within the Black Lives Matter movement, 19 prominent Black figures explain why Black lives should be celebrated when too often they are undervalued. Drawing from personal experience, they stress how Black British people have unique perspectives and experiences that enrich British society and the world; how Black lives are far more interesting and important than the forces that try to limit it.

As Roger Lytollis travels Britain, he encounters a man at Liverpool's Beatles statue convinced that Rod Stewart was in the Fab Four. In Edinburgh, he walks into a row over Greyfriars Bobby's nose, and in Glasgow, learns why the duke of Wellington wears a traffic cone on his head. London brings a controversial nude statue and some hard truths about racism. On a Pedestal is the first book to examine public statues around the nation.