Showing results by narrator "David McCallion" in All Categories

The annual West Uist literary festival - The Gathering - always attracts the best in the business. But with the tiny island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behaviour.... Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought in to investigate. Did Ranald trip and fall, as suggested? Or is something more sinister happening?

The Baxter house has been on the estate agent’s books for decades. Dilapidated and near derelict, nobody is interested in it. But, for one buyer, the remote location and rat-infested cellar are perfect. For the first year, Mackenzie’s marriage to Derek was ideal. But Derek believes she is having an affair, and when she realises her husband is becoming controlling, she knows she’s made a terrible mistake. When she threatens to leave and then disappears, no one believes she has been abducted.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tells the story of the lawyer Gabriel John Utterson as he investigates some disturbing incidents involving his old friend, the talented doctor Henry Jekyll, and his mysterious and sinister new companion, Edward Hyde. The lawyer is worried about his friend after he changes his will to include Hyde in case of his death or disappearance. Fearing that the doctor is being blackmailed by the stranger, the lawyer sets out to confront him.

It’s been five years since Mackenzie Darroch was held captive in a derelict house. She thought she'd found her way out of the darkness. She was wrong. When she witnesses a car crash and saves the driver’s life, it sets a chain of events that will alter their futures. Gina Calvi is convinced Mackenzie is not what she appears and is prepared to do anything to prove it. Meanwhile, across the city, Kirsty McBride, a young single mother, is persuaded to leave a violent relationship.

The Scottish Hebrides - Inspector Torquil McKinnon has returned to the remote Scottish island of West Uist to devastating news. His closest friend, Constable Ewan McPhee, is missing, presumed dead. When more bodies are found in suspicious circumstances, it is clear a serial killer is at large. Tensions are high, and paranoia is rife.

Having been the victim of a hit-and-run accident, and despite being black and blue, DI Munro wastes no time in trying to find out the identity of the perpetrator. In the meantime, a junior detective receives a call from a concerned member of the public, worried that a recently deceased friend’s will had been unlawfully changed. What connects these two events will be crucial to the detective’s investigation. But when prime witnesses turn up dead, they’ll discover they have a more serious case on their hands.

Star investigative reporter Ralph Buchanan’s glory days are behind him. His newspaper has banished him abroad, not knowing the greatest moment of his long career is waiting for him there. When Simone Jasnin asks him to help expose a grave injustice, he finds himself embroiled in a harrowing tale that began in a dusty rural settlement, setting in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of everyone involved. Seven years later, members of a prominent family are being brutally murdered. The only clue is a hand-carved wooden bangle left at the scene of each crime.

Compiled by Thucydides, an Athenian historian and general during the Peloponnesian War, The History of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) is considered to be one of the first scholarly historical works ever written.

First published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is widely considered to be Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece and is believed to have been at least partially based on Maugham’s own life. This is the tale of Philip Carey, who is orphaned at a young age and raised by his uncle. Of Human Bondage follows Philip on his travels to Paris, London, and Germany, taking the listener on an adventure of discovery as his travels brings him new discoveries and emotional growth.

Felix Holt, the Radical is the story of a young English nobleman, Harold Transome, and the idealist Felix Holt. Transome amasses a fortune while in the colonies and returns home to run for Parliament while taking a liking to one Esther Lyon, the daughter of a clergyman. Everything goes as planned until Felix Holt comes on the scene with his own radical ideas, determined to educate the working-class citizens on the value of integrity and the common man.

Down-on-his-luck businessman Tam McDonnell thinks he may have rescued his ailing pub when a local man comes good on his promise to fill the venue with punters in exchange for a percentage of the takings. That's until he discovers a newly hired barmaid dead in the toilets. DI Charlie West's team struggle to find a motive. Clearly murdered, if the corkscrew in her neck is anything to go by, the victim was loved by all who knew her and apparently led a squeaky-clean life—cleaner than the toilet, at any rate.

Sophocles was born at Colonus, near Athens in about 496 BC and is considered to be one of the premier playwrights of Greek tragedy. His stories may have been filled with strife, but Sophocles himself was prosperous and came from a good family. It is said that he was handsome, wealthy, and a highly respected citizen of Athens. During his life, he wrote over 120 plays and was instrumental in how plays would eventually be performed, including the addition of stage props.

It is a serendipitous encounter for the hapless DI Greg Byrne when retired sleuth James Munro stumbles upon his crime scene. And perhaps also for Munro himself, who, his protégé Charlie West having firmly snapped his apron strings, needs other lambs to wean. The day is far less auspicious for the victim in the affair, the unfortunate property developer Rebecca Barlow, who has been trussed up like a scarecrow in her yard. Though occurring off DI West’s Ayrshire patch, the investigation will soon intertwine with one of her own.

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb is a retelling of 20 of Shakespeare’s most beloved stories. Within the pages of this book, the 19th-century authors bring to life the Shakespearean plots and characters of another age in an easy-to-understand prose of a newer generation.

One of the most remarkable figures of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne was a brilliant French philosopher and statesman whose work directly influenced René Descartes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Isaac Asimov and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a humanist and a sceptic, with an insatiable and wide-ranging curiosity. In 1571, on his 38th birthday, he withdrew from public life and retired to the library in his castle tower, where he assembled a body of work that is still highly relevant today.

In 1831, the HMS Beagle took sail. Onboard was a young Charles Darwin. He would set out on an adventure that would lead him to question everything about man's place in the world. The Voyage of the Beagle is the journal Darwin kept of his observations of the extraordinary and natural wonders he encountered, from volcanoes to the coral reefs of Australia. It would be these natural wonders that would lead to him questioning how the different species of the world came to be and eventually to his radical theories.

Jake Boulder’s help is requested when his friend’s family is crucified and burned.

When a woman’s body is discovered, Boulder realises the murders have something unusual in common. After a young couple is snatched, the case takes a more brutal turn. Gruesome footage is sent to the major US news outlets; the pressure to find those responsible mounts. With the authorities against him, can Boulder catch the killer?

A family day out turns sour for DI McKay when he stumbles across an unidentified corpse. The day becomes darker still when his brother-in-law goes missing and is eventually found dead, the result of a seemingly accidental fall. Meanwhile, DCI Helena Grant has a disastrous on-line date with a pompous senior manager of a local hotel chain. Her initial amusement turns to unease at his disturbing behaviour. And, as she arrives home, she receives a threatening text from someone who has been watching her.

Honoré de Balzac uses his classic style of detail to describe a most controversial setting in his novel Le Pere Goriot. The story takes place in Paris just after the fall of Napoleon in 1819. The story focuses on three characters, Rastignac, a student who wants to try and make it big in the capital, Vautrin, an interesting and funny character who is also quite mysterious, and the main character, Goriot, that carries a heavy burden that only a loving parent would endure.

When the Dawson family is found slaughtered in what appears to be a tragic murder-suicide, it seems like another heartbreaking case of a man pushed to the edge, taking his wife and children with him before ending his own life. But DI Alec McKay has doubts. Why was a mysterious BMW spotted at the Dawsons’ holiday home that day, and why are its owners also now dead? What’s behind the erratic behaviour of the new senior investigating officer? And, most disturbingly, who is sending out packages containing toys taken from the crime scene?