Showing results by narrator "Sean Barrett" in All Categories

Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren't much better than clowns. Or so David Cartwright used to say, but he forgot to add they can be dangerous too, especially if they've fallen on hard times - as Diana Taverner learns when the past lands on her desk. An operation carried out during the height of the Troubles laid bare the ugly side of state security, and those involved are threatening to expose details. But every threat hides an opportunity, and the would-be blackmailer is soon being used as Taverner's solution to a much newer problem.

Here in Slough House, the intelligence service's home for inept spies, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Roddy Ho is used to being the one the slow horses turn to when they need miracles performed, and he's always been Jackson Lamb's Number Two. So when Lamb has a photograph that needs doctoring, it's Ho he entrusts with the task. Christmas is a time for memories, but Lamb doesn't do memories—or so he says. But what is it about the photo that makes him want to alter it? How would the slow horses cope if Roddy Ho didn't exist?

From the Intelligence Service purgatory that is Slough House, where disgraced spies are sent to see out the dregs of their careers, Jackson Lamb is on his way to Oxford, where a former spook has turned up dead on a bus. Dickie Bow was a talented streetwalker once, good at following people and bringing home their secrets. He was in Berlin with Lamb, back in the day. But he's not an obvious target for assassination in the here and now.

Skilgannon the Damned had vanished from the pages of history. Following the terrible triumph at Perapolis, the General had taken the legendary Swords of Night and Day and ridden from the lands of Naashan. No one knew where he had gone, and the assassins sent by the Witch Queen could find no trace of his passing. Three years later, as a mob intent on murder gathers outside a distant monastery, they are faced by a single unarmed priest. In a few terrifying seconds their world is changed for ever, and word spreads across the lands of the East.

In London, ex-cop Vincent Ruiz rescues a young woman from a violent boyfriend but wakes next morning to find that he’s been set up and robbed. As he tracks down the thieves, he discovers the boyfriend’s tortured body and learns that powerful men are looking for the girl. What did Holly Knight steal that is so important to them?

Shasa Courtney, heir to the Courtney fortunes, dreams only of uniting his divided, beloved country. Against all his principles, he allows his half brother Manfred to persuade him to join South Africa's right-wing National Party, hoping to moderate from within their dangerous policies of apartheid. But Shasa's wife is working against everything he's working for while Manfred has deadly secrets he cannot afford to be revealed, either to his family or the public who are on the brink of war.

Famed sailor Hal Courtney is now a man of land and family. But when the King orders him to sail to Madagascar and stop the pirates responsible for looting the finest trading ships of the East India Trading Company and bringing ruin to them all, Hal must travel with his three younger sons on a journey that will shape the young men forever. In this swashbuckling adventure of marauders and slave traders, love and treasure, the brothers will face duels, chases, betrayals and battles - and see their fates cast in ways they could never have imagined.

This is Jackson Lamb's kingdom: a dumping ground for spies who've screwed up. Once high fliers, they're now slow horses, condemned to a life of pushing paper as punishment for crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal. In drab and mildewed offices, these highly trained spies moan and squabble, stare at the walls, and dream of better days - not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a slow horse, and the one thing they have in common is their desire to be back in the action.

It is 1667, and the war between the Dutch and the English continues apace. Sir Francis Courtney, his son Hal and their crew are carried around the southern tip of the African colonies by the good ship Lady Edwina, licensed to attack and seize the treasure-laden ships of the Dutch East India company. When they capture a Dutch trader and hold the passengers to ransom, Sir Francis hopes only for a good price and a small sense of satisfaction.

Saffron grows up on a sprawling Kenyan estate, under the watchful eye of her father, prominent businessman and distinguished war veteran Leon Courtney. Her childhood is idyllic, until a family tragedy forces her to grow up much faster than necessary. As she grows into a spirited teenager, her thirst for knowledge and adventure leads her to England, where she finds herself inevitably drawn into the heart of the gathering storm in the lead-up to World War II.

A magisterial, single volume history of the greatest conflict the world has ever known by our foremost military historian. The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific and China, and yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects.

Jim Courtney is protected by all the wealth and influence that his family's successful business, the Courtney Brothers Trading Company, can provide in the Dutch-owned colonies of South Africa. Louisa Leuven is an orphaned young woman who escaped the plague only to be unjustly imprisoned and transported to the Cape. When a storm destroys her prison ship, Jim is her only hope of escape. But Louisa and Jim have greater adventures in the African wilds ahead of them.

The final story of Waylander, available in audio for the first time. Thousands of years ago, the city of Kuan Hador - a place steeped in evil - was defeated by a vast army of mystic warriors, the enemy banished beyond the gateway between worlds. Now, in the Duchy of Kydor, 2,000 miles from the lands of the Drenai, icy mists begin to form around the ruins of Kuan Hador. Awesome beasts stalk the hills and forests. The spells are fading, the days of blood drawing nearer.

When Piper and her friend Tash disappeared, there was a huge police search, but they were never found. Now Tash, reaching breaking point at the abuse their captor has inflicted on them, has escaped, promising to come back for Piper. Clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and his stalwart companion, ex-cop Vincent Ruiz, force the police to re-open the case after Joe is called in to assess the possible killer of a couple in their own home and finds a connection to the missing girls.

I close my eyes and feel my heart begin racing. Someone is coming. They're going to find me. A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince.

Paris, 1794. Revolutionary fervour has erupted into the Reign of Terror. A young man, Paul Courtney, hides in a crowd watching as condemned dignitaries have their sentences carried out. Among them is the Comtesse de Bercheny, Constance Courtney, Paul's mother. As he watches her brutal execution, he know she must avoid the same fate and fulfil his promise to her - to survive, no matter what. When Paul rescues a girl from attack the two form an allegiance, but with the world at war and traitors in every corner, just how far w ill Paul go to ensure his ow n survival?

A naked woman is perched on the edge of Clifton Suspension Bridge weeping into a mobile phone. Clinical psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin is only feet away, desperately trying to talk her down. She whispers, 'you don't understand,' and jumps. Later, Joe has a visitor - the woman's teenage daughter, a runaway from boarding school. She refuses to believe that her mother would have jumped off the bridge - not only would she not commit suicide, she is terrified of heights.

High in the wooded, peaked mountains of Skeln, the woodsman, Dakeyras, and his beautiful daughter, Miriel, live a life of harmonious solitude. Unbeknown to them, a group of grim-eyed, bloodthirsty warriors stalk the mountains. Men who have never known defeat, to whom revenge and torture are meat and drink. For 10,000 in gold they are eager to kill the woodsman. Battle-hardened warriors all, they have no fear of this task - but they should have.

Harry is out of his depth. Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can. He's not supposed to get too involved. When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth. The hunt for a serial killer is on, but the murderer will talk only to Harry. He might just be the next victim.

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service's First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive—but she's had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she's fought for.