Showing results by narrator "Paul Panting" in All Categories

Henry Graves has dedicated his life to the prison service, but he is unprepared for his new assignment. Tasked with managing a hidden government facility, Henry finds himself tested as never before. Tom Clarke, a precocious but naive journalist, has his own problems meanwhile. His life is turned upside down by the arrival of Julia Priestley, who seeks his help in finding her estranged husband, Arthur, an innocent dentist who has been arrested under severe new anti-terrorism legislation.

Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of 18! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe . . . or if you are a child from the wrong social class . . . or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

"Here is a nice thing for a lady now - this hand-glass: fifteenth century; comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector." The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed through Markheim.

A burning summer's day explodes into violence when a murderous gang targets the exclusive island of Terror's Reach, home to business tycoon Valentin Nasenko and his family. The residents are facing annihilation, and only one man stands a chance of saving them: former CID Officer Joe Clayton, now working as a bodyguard to Nasenko's wife. When night falls, he must draw upon all his experience to keep them alive.

Sixteen classic stories from masters of the genre: "The Judge's House", by Bram Stoker; "A Jug of Sirup", by Ambrose Bierce; "The Reconciliation", by Lafcadio Hearn; "The Woman With a Candle" by W. Bourne Cooke; "The Ebony Frame", by E. Nesbit; "On the Northern Ice", by Elia W. Peattie; "The Haunted Doll's House", by M. R. James; "The Old House in Vauxhall Walk", by Charlotte Riddell; "The Underground Ghost", by John Berwick Harwood; "Haunted", by Anon (from Tinsley's Annual); plus five more....

A large sum of money is stolen from Tudways Bank, and a clerk named Franklin Gale is the obvious suspect. But Gale’s father is positive his son is innocent, and hires private detective Sebastian Zambra - who finds that the key to the mystery lies with a five-pound note and a performing monkey.

When Lomax Harder accompanies John Franting to Gontle’s, purveyor of fine firearms, he finds himself in possession of a gun. This accidental acquisition leads to a situation that can have only one outcome....

During the six long years of the Second World War the British psyche was changed irrevocably. British men and women on both the war front and at home were forced to take life-altering decisions, independently. What no-one could predict were the consequences on the family and on society of these independent journeys by husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers, siblings. Nobody would ever be the same.

Brothers in War is the immensely powerful story of eight Beechey brothers, and how they paid the ultimate price for King and country in the Great War. Some were keen to enlist from the start, others were conscripted and some dead against. Eventually, all eight would be swept up into its devastating path as, despite astonishing displays of courage and strength of character, they met their fates on the battlefields of France, Flanders, East Africa, and Gallipoli.

I met a man in the Strand one day that I knew very well - though I had not seen him for years. We walked together to Charing Cross, and there we shook hands and parted. Next morning - I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before.

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, high-stacking his way across the rooftops of his city in search of adventure and mystery. In each tale, he encounters a supernatural force and must battle the horrors that await him.

A young, hard-up aristocrat decides to visit his wealthy relative in the hope of obtaining a loan. When he arrives at Greylands Court, he is warmly greeted by his cousin, but his hostess is strangely hostile. However, her husband urges the young man to pay no attention to her, and invites him to tour his menagerie. There he sees the star of his cousin’s collection: a sleek, black Brazilian puma.

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and high-stacking around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. A fantastic romp through a Dickensian-style city, with a wonderful new hero in the guise of Barnaby.

Western intelligence is in meltdown trying to locate Salim Dhar, the world’s most wanted terrorist. But only renegade MI6 officer Daniel Marchant knows how to find him. Everywhere Marchant moves, from Marrakech to Sardinia, he is shadowed by the exotic CIA agent Lakshmi Meena. As Britain braces itself for a series of terrifying terrorist attacks, Marchant is forced to confront dark personal truths about loyalty and love.

Daniel Marchant, a suspended MI6 officer, is running the London Marathon. He is also running out of time. A competitor is strapped with explosives: if he drops his pace, everyone around him will be killed, including the US ambassador to London. Marchant tries to thwart the attack, but is he secretly working for the terrorists?

In the unexplored regions of Noreela there are rumours of the Great Divide, a massive cliff which demarcates the end of the known world and something else, something unknown. Ramus and Nomi obtain a parchment from a voyager who claims to have visited the region and it indicates that there are other, even greater, mysteries to be explored. They set off on the ultimate challenge and potentially lethal expedition.

Kel Boon thinks he has managed to escape his past as an agent in the secret organisation the Core, protecting the blissfully unaware Noreelans from the threat of the lizard-like Strangers - creatures from beyond the known world capable of untold destruction. In the sleepy fishing village of Pavmouth Breaks, Kel has become the woodcarver, leaving fighting behind and forming a tentative relationship with trainee witch Namior. But a storm is brewing and at its centre the witches sense something dark, and deadly.

What seems like a simple case of a missing pet soon has the Space Detectives completely bamboozled! This is no ordinary pet—it’s a synthpet, where owners mix in different animals to make a totally unique one-of-a-kind pet. The missing pet has the body and legs of a cat, a duck’s bill, long rabbit-like ears and the scaly tail of a crocodile. A creature like that should be easy to spot, right? Not on Starville, the universe’s biggest space station where every inhabitant looks different—it’s like looking for a star in a galaxy.