Showing results by narrator "Rayner Bourton" in All Categories

Kotick, a rare white-furred fur seal, sees seals being killed by islanders in the Bering Sea. He decides to find a safe home for his people, and after several years of searching as he comes of age, eventually finds a suitable place. He returns home and persuades the other seals to follow him.

Robur the Conqueror (French: Robur-le-Conquérant) is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne, published in 1886. It is also known as The Clipper of the Clouds. It has a sequel, Master of the World, which was published in 1904. The story begins with strange lights and sounds, including blaring trumpet music, reported in the skies all over the world.

Toomai's father rides Kala Nag the elephant to catch wild elephants in the hills. Toomai comes to help and risks his life throwing a role up to one of the drivers. His father forbids him to enter the elephant enclosure again. One night he follows the elephant hunters, and is picked up by Kala Nag; he rides into the elephants' meeting place in the jungle, where they dance. On his return he is welcomed by both hunters and elephants.

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's own childhood.

During the time Mowgli was with the wolf pack, he is abducted by the Bandar-log monkeys to the ruined city. Baloo and Bagheera set out to rescue him with Kaa the python. Kaa defeats the Bandar-log, frees Mowgli, and hypnotises the monkeys and the other animals with his dance. Mowgli rescues Baloo and Bagheera from the spell.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in 1870. Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood's uncle, John Jasper, a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to each other. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances.

Martin Eden is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer. It was first serialized in The Pacific Monthly magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and then published in book form by Macmillan in September 1909. - Eden represents writers' frustration with publishers by speculating that when he mails off a manuscript, a "cunning arrangement of cogs" immediately puts it in a new envelope and returns it automatically with a rejection slip.

An English family have just moved to a house in India. They find Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose flooded out of his burrow. A pair of large cobras, Nag and Nagaina, attempt unsuccessfully to kill him. He hears the cobras plotting to kill the father in the house, and attacks Nag in the bathroom. The sound of the fight attracts the father, who shoots Nag. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi destroys Nagaina's eggs and chases her into her "rat-hole" where he kills her too.

A boy is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle with the help of Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther, who teach him the "Law of the Jungle". Some years later, the wolfpack and Mowgli are threatened by the tiger Shere Khan. Mowgli brings fire, driving off Shere Khan but showing that he is a man and must leave the jungle.

Praised for her success in an earlier case, DI Barbara Forster is suddenly accused of having tampered with evidence in it - an accusation that threatens to derail her entire career. As the man who was wrongfully convicted 10 years earlier goes free, a young woman goes missing. Meanwhile, Barbara is suspended and the media smell blood. To discover what really happened she must work alone, aided only by Alice Myers, an investigative journalist for a mass-market tabloid who hopes her latest report on a recent murder will help take her friend off the front pages.

A tense, taut tale of mounting suspense and chilling drama. An intricately plotted psychological thriller that explores obsession, madness, betrayal and fear. She has an affair. She ends it. She thinks it's finished. She has fatally miscalculated.... On the same evening Laura Hill first meets Sean Cazaly, her secretary Katie is attacked by "happy slapping" thugs. And Sonila arrives from Albania as part of a human trafficking scam targeting Laura's language school.

A story of murder, deception, and revenge set in Derbyshire’s Peak District, an area of isolated farms, close-knit villages, and festering secrets. Into this secluded world steps journalist Alice Myers at the invitation of DI Neil Hunter, who soon begins investigating deaths that look increasingly like murder. All the deaths seem linked to a serial killer, now serving a life sentence. A cat-and-mouse game unfolds for both Neil and Alice. Is a copycat at large? Who will be the next victim?

DI Barbara Forster returns home to Cumbria for the first time since a personal tragedy shattered her small Lake District village. Tragedy strikes again when her teenage goddaughter Katya vanishes under circumstances that mirror the disappearance of Barbara’s teenage friend 10 years earlier, during a charity fun run on bonfire night - still an unsolved case. Convinced there is a link, Barbara is determined to find the missing girl and answers to the past.

Every morning, the same path, the same route, the same time. Except when a wrong turning changes one man’s life for ever...When Steve Ellison discovers the body of a neighbour’s six-year-old daughter - who strongly resembles a child who disappeared in similar circumstances 26 years earlier - it unleashes a sequence of events that turns his life upside down, overwhelms his family, and the local community alike. DCI Neil Hunter immediately begins his investigation and the media invade Steve’s privacy, leaving him stunned, bewildered and...the prime murder suspect.

Rebekah and Mark Walker find themselves in every parent’s worst nightmare when their dazzling, talented daughter Kezia vanishes after a night out. Soon, they are propelled into the vortex of a fraught missing person inquiry. In a family torn apart by the disappearance of an apparently captivating teenager, we discover a tangled web of intrigue: mutual suspicion, sibling struggles, and the vain attempt of Kezia's parents to maintain a normal life in the face of almost unendurable pressures.

After 15 years of self-imposed exile in Canada, successful businessman Nick Lawrence returns to the Derbyshire village where he grew up, to rescue a company on the verge of bankruptcy and its workforce from mass unemployment. But, it soon becomes clear why he left. He was convicted and later acquitted of the murder of his girlfriend Emily, the daughter of Oliver Fleming - owner of the failing company that is still determined to prove he was guilty all along.

Three murders. Multiple suspects. No proof. Sixteen years ago, Alice's closest friend suddenly breaks off their friendship in the New Forest where they both grew up. And Alice's father inexplicably moves the family away to London. All these years later, everything changes. Returning to her childhood home on the death of her grandmother, journalist Alice Myers finds a community in upheaval. The death of her friend Ellie is just the start.

A complex psychological thriller packed with suspense and a plot that twists and turns like an octopus. On 7th July 2005, a man disappears, believed dead, in the London bombings. Some years later, a freelance journalist recognizes his photograph in a newspaper - the man she has just seen in a café. From that second, Alice’s life will be changed forever in ways she could never have foreseen. Immediately she is pitched into a race against time that takes her from London, across Britain and into the heart of a mystery - the reason for his disappearance on that fateful day.

The young daughter of a local doctor is killed - shoved into an icy, fast-flowing river and cold-bloodedly left to die. Her parents stubbornly deny any involvement. The child’s father is so focused on his right to remain silent that DCI Neil Hunter, DI Barbara Forster, and DC Matt Walsh begin to wonder if he wants the truth uncovered - or ensure it remains buried. The mother, too, has her own reasons for keeping the truth dead and buried. Then, within days, a boy is also murdered, and all three officers find themselves caught up in one of the most harrowing cases of their careers.

Nicola never imagines herself as a widow in her mid-thirties. Losing her husband to a sudden illness shatters her world, but then she unexpectedly meets up with Matt, her childhood love. As they reconnect after years apart, Nicola finds herself drawn to his easy charm and gentle demeanour. Despite the guilt she feels for moving on so quickly after her husband's death, she can't help but fall for him. Their affair is passionate and all-consuming, but just as Matt finally decides to leave Michelle his wife, Michelle disappears without trace.