Showing results by narrator "Mark Meadows" in All Categories

Florence, 1691. The Renaissance is long gone, and the city is a dark, repressive place, where everything is forbidden and anything is possible. Knowledge is still the property of the few, and they guard it fiercely. Art, sex and power - these, as always, are the obsessions. Facing criminal charges, Gaetano Zummo is forced to flee his native Siracusa at the age of 20, first to Palermo, then Naples, but always has the feeling that he is being pursued by his past, and that he will never be free of it.

Exploding the tired stereotypes of autism, Daniel Tammet - an autistic savant himself - reaches across the divides of age, gender, sexuality and nationality to draw out the inner worlds of his subjects. Portraying a range of experiences as richly diverse as the spectrum itself, this illuminating, life-affirming work of narrative nonfiction celebrates the power and beauty of the neurodivergent mind, and the daring freedom with which these people have built their lives.

Abandoning the safety of England for the perilous shores of the Levant, Estienne Wace is thrust into the turmoil of the Fifth Crusade. Burning with righteous purpose, he is determined to reclaim the Holy Land in the name of Christ. War rages along the banks of the Nile as a crusading army besieges the Saracen city of Damietta, certain that the price they pay in blood will return the glory and treasures they crave. But as the Black Lion roars, and the siege grinds on, Estienne’s unwavering faith is tested more and more by the grim reality of this brutal conflict.

Chris Beckett's thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to listen to, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto itself - each one beautifully realized and brilliantly imagined.

After the sudden loss of his wife, Michael Turner moves to London and develops a close friendship with the Nelson family next door. Josh, Samantha and their two young daughters seem to represent everything Michael fears he may now never have. Despite this, the new friendship at first seems to offer the prospect of healing, but then a catastrophic event changes everything. Michael is left bearing the burden of a secret he must keep, but the truth can be kept at bay for only so long.

The global financial crisis that erupted in 2008 exposed the flaws in many investment strategies. This book explores the controversies that surround the management of wealth and provides guidance on how to construct investment strategies that are appropriate for each investor. With its detailed analysis, supported by data and anecdotes, it is above all a practical guide. It shows how the insights of behavioural analysis are widely reflected in investor behaviour, while emphasising the importance of basing investment strategy on the principles of traditional finance.

The Terracotta Dog, the second book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, opens with a mysterious tête-à-tête with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where...

Filled with the twists, pathos and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist's extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer's death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, A.N. Wilson seeks to understand Dickens' creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens's fiction drew from his own experiences. Dickens knew first-hand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage.

Harry, Lucas and Guy were best friends when they were kids. But then they made a terrible mistake and their friendship shattered, forcing them to cut all ties. Years later, a man’s head is discovered in the woods, skinned and with the tongue cut out. The police call on Harry, a psychologist, to help with the case, and when it turns out the victim is his childhood friend Guy, old skeletons begin to surface. Then one of Harry’s clients goes missing. Forced into a desperate hunt to save the boy, Harry finds himself closing in on a shocking secret.

1943, the North African desert. Major Tim Sheldon, exhausted and battle weary, is tasked with carrying out a futile and unexpected patrol mission. Fred Majdalany's intimate, tense novel puts this so-called minor action centre stage, as over the course of the day and through the night of the patrol itself, Sheldon reminisces about his time as a soldier, his own future and what it means to confront fear.

Winter 1264. England is in turmoil. King Henry III's reign is under threat. In Oxford the barons prepare to challenge his rule. Searching for his lodgings down a dark alley, young student Thomas Symon hears a scream. It's a young girl, her throat slit. Mistaken for the fleeing killer, Thomas is saved from a vengeful town mob by a stranger pulling him into a dark passageway. The man is his new university tutor, renowned academic Regent Master William Falconer.

Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. This book tells the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. Using previously unpublished diaries, original Luftwaffe reports and specially commissioned artwork, this gripping battle is told in detail through the eyes of the Luftwaffe commanders and pilots.

For eight hundred years, Albrecht’s Travelling Circus has been trapped in the realm of dreams. Its creator was thwarted in his mission to corrupt all who saw him and his carnival of oddities. Now, a serial killer has found a way to unleash the carnival into the real world and only the Night Warriors can stop it from happening. They are used to confronting evil in dreams but this enemy is of the waking world, where their strength is greatly diminished. And with power unlike any they have seen before, they will soon learn that this killer is very much more than a nightmare…

Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans?

Former chief investigator Jan Kalisz lives a dangerous double life, forced to work with the occupiers as he gathers information for the fledgling Polish resistance. Even his family cannot be told his true allegiance. When the niece of a Wehrmacht general is found terribly mutilated, Jan links the murder to other killings that are of less interest to his new overlords. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a psychopathic killer known as The Artist. But, shunned as a Nazi collaborator, can he solve the case before another innocent girl is taken?

Who was the real King Arthur? What do the historical documents tell us about the Knight of the Round Temple? It is just a chivalric fantasy? The story of Arthur has been handed down to us by medieval poets and legends - but what if he actually existed and was in fact a great king in the early years of Britain's story? Mike Ashley visits the source material and uncovers unexpected new insights into the legend: There is clear evidence that the Arthurian legends arose from the exploits of not just one man, but at least three originating in Wales, Scotland, and Brittany.

The action swings from London to Sweden, and then back into the past, to Franco’s Spain, as Roy and Castells hunt a monstrous killer...in the latest instalment of Johana Gustawsson’s award-winning series. Spain, 1938: the country is wracked by civil war, and as Valencia falls to Franco’s brutal dictatorship, Republican Therese witnesses the murders of her family. Captured and sent to the notorious Las Ventas women’s prison, Therese gives birth to a daughter who is forcibly taken from her.

Henry was the first to reach the girl, found sleeping on the beach, with his friends Gil and Susan. When they learn what has happened to her, they are thrown into a mystery that nightmares are made of. The young girl has been forced to host a hideous malevolence that insinuates itself into the bodies and minds of thousands of unsuspecting people. The only hope of saving them is to become Night Warriors, an ancient Order with the power to infiltrate the dream world, and destroy the original source.

Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul lies at the centre of the most pressing challenges of our time. With environmental decay, rapacious development and tightening authoritarianism straining its social fabric to breaking point, it represents the precipitous moment civilizations around the world are currently facing. In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller meets people who are experiencing the looming crisis and fighting back, sometimes triumphing despite the odds.

In the tunnels deep under London, the Earth Elementals are dying. Hunted by something they know only as the Rotman, the Elementals have no-one trustworthy they can turn to. Enter Don Drake, diabolist and semi-reformed hitman, and an almost-fallen angel called Trixie. When the matriarch tells Don that Rotman is actually the Archdemon Bianakith, he knows this is going to be a tough job. Bianakith is the foretold spirit of disease and decay whose aura corrupts everything it comes near.