Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

Isobel Swan, a sixth form student, has been murdered. First, her ring finger is severed, then her throat is cut. With the investigation going nowhere fast, Detective Inspector Nick Dixon is sent undercover as a trainee teacher into Isobel’s boarding school. But to find the killer, he must first confront his inner demons and lay to rest the ghosts lurking in his own past. If he can… As Dixon digs deeper, the stakes have never been higher and a murder has never felt so personal.

Asked to name a great physicist, most people would mention Newton or Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. But ask a physicist and there’s no doubt that James Clerk Maxwell will be near the top of the list. Maxwell, an unassuming Victorian Scotsman, explained how we perceive color. He uncovered the way gases behave. And, most significantly, he transformed the way physics was undertaken in his explanation of the interaction of electricity and magnetism, revealing the nature of light and laying the groundwork for everything from Einstein’s special relativity to modern electronics.

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon arrives late for Bridgwater’s winter carnival. He’s come to see the squibbing, the traditional firework display that brings the town’s November festivities to a dramatic close. But when the squib of Avalon Carnival Club president Richard Webb is lit, it explodes, engulfing him in flames. Dixon knows he’s just witnessed a killer making a very public statement. And he can’t help feeling it’s only the beginning.

Christopher Berry-Dee is the man who talks to serial killers. A world-renowned investigative criminologist, he has gained the trust of murderers across the world, entered their high security prisons and discussed in detail their shocking crimes. Berry-Dee now delves into the mind of perhaps the most sadistic and psychopathic killer of all time. Using his long experience and psychological expertise, Berry-Dee seeks to understand the motivation, the amoral urges and the merciless horror behind Dahmer's inhuman behaviour: what could make a man do this?

Akulov is full of loathing for the country that built and then broke him. Unable to shake the guilt of his past, Akulov has made it his business to seek out those who prey upon the innocent. The name Wolf Six is legendary - whispered by those who know it with fear. But when Akulov accidentally thwarts the armed robbery of a Chicago Bank, he pits himself against both the Russian Bratva and the CIA, setting into motion a spiralling sequence of events which will bring his past back to haunt him, and potentially turn his future to ashes…

When the body of a teenage girl is found in a London hotel, DI Patrick Lennon is mystified. Nobody saw her or her killer enter the hotel, and there is no apparent motive - until a second teenager is found and Lennon realises somebody is targeting fans of the world's biggest boy band.

The Realm of Dreich is a getaway for the rich and powerful, a medieval-inspired town in the middle of a vast frozen wilderness. Now it’s the site of a wedding, intended to join two feuding families who have spent centuries in an uneasy truce with each other. When Tommy Carpenter asks his best friend, Nate Garrett, to help him with the security of the wedding, Nate reluctantly agrees, knowing that it will be a long weekend of work and, in all probability, treachery.

What do you do when the doctor says you could die at any moment? Well...after you’ve made a cup of tea, of course. Nathan James is young, successful and has the world at his feet. Unfortunately, he’s also about to die - which ruins things somewhat. And now he’s staring imminent death in the face, Nathan is having to rethink some of his life choices very hard. Then Nathan falls in love with a charming girl called Alison, which is a really stupid thing to do. Because how can you give your heart to someone when it might be about to stop?

September 1940 is finally drawing to a close. With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance: Britain should retaliate even harder with their own bombing campaign in enemy territory. But once again the night heralds more destruction. At Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear people disperse, but one man remains - he's dead, stabbed through the heart.

After twenty years apart, Matthew and Helena have rekindled their college romance and are away in Iceland on their first holiday together. Swept up in the romance on a mountain hike, one moment they are taking the perfect photo, the next Helena is hanging from the cliff edge…

When vandals destroy beach hut 512 on Brighton’s iconic seafront, they reveal a dead body that has apparently lain undisturbed for two months. But according to the hut’s owner, Sims, its locks rusted shut three months ago and she hasn’t had access to it since. So how could the man have got in, and why is there no evidence of the murderer?

With Africa's last elephants dying under the poachers' guns, Kenya rancher and former SAS officer Ian MacAdam leads a commando squad against them. Pursuing the poachers through jungled mountains and searing deserts he battles thirst, solitude, terror and lethal animals, only to find that the poachers have kidnapped a young archaeologist, Rebecca Hecht, whom he once loved and bitterly lost.

October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a light shining like a beacon to the enemy aircraft overhead, violating the strict blackout regulations. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman – and she's been strangled with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women in the mid-1930s but has never been caught. Is there a connection?

Financial journalist Nicholas Shaxson first made his reputation studying the “resource curse,” seeing first-hand the disastrous economic and societal effects of the discovery of oil in Angola. He then gained prominence as an expert on tax havens, revealing the dark corners of that world long before the scandals of the Panama and Paradise Papers.

How do you break through to impossible-to-reach executive buyers who are intent on blocking out the noise that confronts them every day? Old-school prospecting tactics or new-school techniques alone won't provide the answers. But Combo Prospecting will...by showing how to combine time-tested sales processes with cutting-edge social media strategies and clever technology hacks.

In 1995, 12-year-old Sidney Parsons was savagely murdered by two boys his own age. No reason was ever given for this terrible crime, and the 'Demonic Duo' who killed him were imprisoned until their release in 2002, when they were given new identities and lifetime anonymity. Online journalist Scott King investigates the lead-up and aftermath of the killing, uncovering dark and fanciful stories of demonic possession, and encountering a village torn apart by this unspeakable act.

We cannot know how to fix a problem until we understand its causes. But even for some of the most common mental health problems, three specialists might offer you three completely different treatments. As a cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Professor Anthony David brings together many fields of study, from social and cognitive psychology to neurology. The key for each patient might be anything from a traumatic memory to a chemical imbalance, an unhealthy way of thinking or a hidden tumour.

A woman's body is discovered in Hyde Park. Wearing only one shoe. Close by, Detective Jack MacIntosh finds a black stiletto, diamante buckle glinting in the morning sun. But it doesn't belong to the victim. Two days later, another young woman is found strangled to death in nearby Green Park. Wearing just one shoe - the matching stiletto. Hidden in the long grass beside the body, the police uncover a low-heeled court shoe. Detective Jack and his team are in a race against time to find the owner of the court shoe before it's too late.

Early on a cold Somerset morning, ten year old Alesha Daniels is reported missing by her father, a violent alcoholic. Her mother, a known drug addict, is found unconscious, but it’s her mother’s boyfriend the police are keen to trace. As the hunt for Alesha gathers pace, a second local girl is taken, plunging another family into the depths of despair.

Spiritualism has captured the public’s imagination. Séances are all the rage, and Detective Ian Hamilton’s otherwise sensible aunt Lillian is not immune to their allure. But for Ian, indulging her superstitions has its limits. When members of Lillian’s circle of séance friends begin turning up dead, Ian doesn’t need a medium to tell him these aren’t freak accidents.