Showing results by narrator "Peter Wickham" in All Categories

A reality TV crew descends on Leighford High . . . and Head of Sixth Form Peter Maxwell braces for disaster - but not murder. The cameras pry into every corner of the school, exposing secrets better left buried. But when a member of the TV crew is found stabbed to death in the headteacher's office, it's clear the real drama has only just begun. Then a second crew member is found sprawled in Maxwell's office. Murdered with the same knife. As Maxwell unravels the truth he finds himself facing a chilling reality: the murderer is still watching, still waiting, and ready to kill again.

When asked about when it all began, Peter Maxwell would always say that it was at breakfast one day, when his son said, 'It says in the news that bats are giving people colds'. At that point, that was all anyone thought. Nolan was worried about the Count and Bismarck but of course, as everyone would soon know, it was much more than that. What was less obvious was that the pandemic would also restart a killing spree.

1794...Returning to England, Harry and James become embroiled in a vicious struggle between rival smugglers played out in the English Channel. Witnesses to a bloody confrontation, they flee to Deal - only to find that, behind its picturesque facade, the town is a haven for traders in contraband, seething with corruption and violence.

'The Museum Detectives' Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton have been contacted by the curator of the National Gallery. He is getting in touch at the request of the artist, Walter Sickert, famously suspected of being Jack the Ripper. The dead body of a young woman, who had been an artist's model, has been found at the back of the gallery, and Sickert has been arrested on suspicion of her murder. When a second similar murder occurs, Sickert is once again implicated.

From travelling to the moon to fighting a 40-foot-long crocodile and riding a cannonball through the air, Baron von Munchausen’s incredible account of his own adventures has entertained readers since its initial appearance in 1785. The obvious comedy of the book, which lies in Munchausen’s boasts about his own adventures, is heightened by the calm and objective way in which he frames his narrative. The Baron appears to fully believe the death-defying episodes with which he regales his listeners.

London, 1899. Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton, the museum detectives, are called upon to investigate a bizarre murder at the White Tower, the heart of the Tower of London. The dead body of a Yeoman is found inside a suit of armour belonging to Henry VIII, having been run through with a sword. When details of this suspicious outrage are reported to the Prince of Wales, he fears this may be an expression of Republican unrest and calls upon Wilson and Fenton to investigate further.

Paris, 1899. Abigail Wilson has received an invitation from Professor Alphonse Flamand, a prominent French Professor of Archaeology, to join him on an archaeological dig in Egypt. Overjoyed to be presented with such an opportunity, Abigail and her husband, Daniel, travel to Paris to meet the professor at his office in the Louvre to discuss plans. However, when Abigail goes to the appointment, she finds Flamand dead with a knife in his chest. In a whirl of confusion and despite her pleas of innocence, Abigail is arrested.

Teenage girls are being picked up on the seafront, and two of them are found dead. DI Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell has barely set foot on her old patch before she is up to her jet-lagged neck in somebody else’s tragedy.

Intended to be a defense of the Christian religion, Pensées is a penetrating collection of thoughts on faith, reason, and theology. Unfinished at the time of Pascal's death, the book consists of philosophical fragments on the "wretchedness" of man and the controversial schisms of the church at the time. It includes the philosopher's infamous wager encouraging belief over agnosticism, as well as his thoughts on numerous other topics. Endlessly quotable, Pensées overflows with pearls of wisdom, each elusive sentence pregnant with a universe of thought.

No death could have been more welcome than Evan Morgan's, or more fitting for the Welcome Home celebrations in the village of Llanddewi. For Morgan had spent the war making money and enemies down in the Vale of Glamorgan with about equal facility. In fact, on the night, it seemed as if a whole posse of murderers had beaten a path to the door of the Manor House.

As Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High and a new father, Peter "Mad Max" Maxwell is a very busy man. Despite this, he still finds time for some amateur sleuthing, even though his policewoman "Significant Other", DS Jacquie Carpenter, has decided that, this time, he's leaving any murder investigations to her. But how can he refuse when the school photographer asks for his help after accidentally photographing a murder on the beach?

Deena Harrison was one of Leighford High School's “characters” - setting fire to the toilet block and throwing boys down stairs. But she had the voice of an angel and could act the skin off a rice pudding. The autumn she came down from Oxford, there was something of a crisis in the Drama department at Leighford High. Mrs Carmichael was in danger of losing her baby and the Little Shop of Horrors was in danger of closing down. So Deena comes back to help out.

When Professor Julius Arnell breathes his last in the British Museum Reading Room, it looks like death from natural causes. Who, after all, would have cause to murder a retired academic? Inspector Shelley's suspicions are aroused when he finds a packet of poisoned sugared almonds in the dead man's pocket, and a motive becomes clearer when he discovers Arnell's connection to a Texan oil millionaire. Soon another man plunges hundreds of feet into a reservoir on a Yorkshire moor.

At the center of The Dark Night of the Soul (La noche oscura del alma) is a poem written by the 16th century Spanish poet and mystic St John of the Cross. Consisting of eight stanzas, each of five lines, the poem outlines the journey in pursuit of divine union, within which the only source of light comes from the soul. This recording in English includes the poem itself and St John's two accompanying treatises (1584-1585), essentially commentaries, which offer line-by-line explanations of the poem. Many modern listeners have found guidance and consolation in this work.

When Roger Bigod, heir to the powerful earldom of Norfolk, arrives at court to settle an inheritance, he meets Ida de Tosney, young mistress to King Henry II. In Roger, Ida sees a chance for lasting love, but their decision to marry carries an agonizing price. It's a breathtaking novel of making choices, not giving up, and coping with the terrible shifting whims of the king.

Sent by the French government to examine the American prison system, Alexis de Tocqueville spent nine months touring the United States between 1831 and 1832. However, fascinated by the success of America's democratic system, de Tocqueville took advantage of his stay to examine the country's foundations and glean ideas that might rescue his homeland from the manacles of social inequality. He leaves no stone unturned, exploring each branch of government, the constitution, economics, religion, race, the judiciary, laws, principles, education, culture, and views on wealth and poverty.

Plotinus, born in Lycopolis, Egypt, when it was part of the Roman Empire, was a major figure in the philosophical school later called Neoplatonism. Neoplatonists viewed reality as deriving from a single force or figure expressed as 'the One'. Two further concepts from Plotinus, 'the Intellect' and 'the Soul', are also principal features of his philosophy. These proposals led to the work of Plotinus forming a bridge between Plato and the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam as well as Gnosticism.

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is a core text of modern philosophy. Presenting an examination of the nature of human reason, its central argument is that the way in which man perceives his environment is a direct consequence of the mind’s ability to act on this environment and convert it into something meaningful. The work brings together two opposing schools of philosophy—rationalism and empiricism—and proposes a third way, which came to be known as transcendental idealism. The work proved to be hugely influential, not least on Marx, Heidegger and Nietzsche.

Maxwell’s Millennium is not quite like other people’s - for a start, it is a year later. After much quibbling with the maths department, everyone calls it an honourable draw and he celebrates as only he can: with his cat, his model soldiers and his Southern Comfort. A knock on the door could be Jacquie Carpenter, released from night shift earlier than expected, but instead of a warm girl Maxwell opens his door to find a very cold old lady, dead and naked.

Peter “Mad Max” Maxwell, the “dinosaur” Head of Sixth Form, doesn’t see the need to know how to send a text or an email. However, it soon becomes vital that he learns. Some of his female pupils begin to receive threatening messages. Then Max starts to receive messages too, and two of the girls go missing. When a body is found it seems that the prank has taken a sinister turn. And Mad Max may well be next.