Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life. When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begin to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is…. Someone who wants vengeance.

After a chance meeting in the pub, Roger Morgan-Grenville and his friend Duncan decide to take up beekeeping. Their enthusiasm matched only by their ignorance, they are pitched into an arcane world of unexpected challenges. Coping with many setbacks along the way, they manage to create a colony of beehives, finishing two years later with more honey than anyone knows what to do with. By standing back from their normal lives and working with the cycle of the seasons, they emerge with a new-found understanding of nature and a respect for the honeybee and the threats it faces.

Zoe knows that it wasn't really her fault. Of course it wasn't. But if she'd just grasped harder, run faster, lunged quicker, she might have saved him. And Edward doesn't really blame her, though his bitter words at the time still haunt her, and he can no more take them back than she can halt the car that killed their son. Two years on, every day is a tragedy. Edward knows they should take healing steps together, but he's tired of being shut out. For Zoe, it just seems easier to let grief lead the way.

Tom Harrison is the Tick Tock Man. He has the most dangerous job in Britain: defusing terrorist bombs. A job that demands nerves of steel and courage to match. But his skill is being tested to the limit by a new IRA bombing campaign. It's different from the others, each device more deadly and cunning than the last, each more difficult for him to neutralise. It's almost as if someone is testing him, trying to find his limits - a long-dead adversary reaching out to him from beyond the grave.

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.

When an Olympic medalist is the subject of an attempted assassination, former SAS trooper Jeff Bradley knows his past is once again casting a shadow over his new life. A note left by the assassin confirms his suspicions: Bradley made an enemy back in Kosovo, and the man is out for revenge. But Jeff knows the killer is not working alone: higher up the ranks sits Avni Leka, a terrorist warlord who will stop at nothing to achieve his bloody goal.

Hakan, son of Haldan, chosen son of the lord of the Northern Jutes, swears loyalty to his father in fire, in iron and in blood. But when a terrible tragedy befalls Hakan's household, he is forced to leave his world behind and pledge his sword to a new king. Nameless and alone, he embarks on a journey to fulfil his destiny as a great warrior.  Whispers of sinister forces in the north pull Hakan onwards to a kingdom plagued by mysterious and gruesome deaths. 

Former SAS soldier Jeff Bradley thought he had left warzones behind when he inherited a vineyard in rural New Zealand. But now his vineyard manager, Arben Shala, has gone missing in his native Kosovo. An enigmatic message tells Jeff that his friend is in grave danger.

Josh is a sweet, well-meaning university student with a big heart. After he impulsively steals two research mice from a campus laboratory, he hides them in the basement of Harewood Hall, a venerable building in the retirement village where he works. The mice are happy, Josh is happy—until he discovers that his charges might be carrying a deadly disease. Enter a curious cat called Harley, a devilish dog called Bobby, the arrival of some mysterious packing boxes and a strange spike in the village's water bill.

2003. Kabul has become a frontier city, Afghanistan's fledgling democracy struggling with crime and corruption as NATO coalition troops, gangs and warlords jostle for control. When the body of a British serviceman is discovered in the city's infamous tank graveyard, the Kabul Police reach out for support in their investigation. Alasdair 'Mac' MacKenzie, formerly of the Metropolitan Police, is seconded to the team.

It looks like a regular advent calendar. Until DC Becky Greene starts opening doors...and discovers a crime scene behind almost every one. The police hope it's a prank. Because if it isn't, a murderer has just surfaced - someone who's been killing for 20 years. But why now? And why has he sent it to this police station? As the country relaxes into festive cheer, Greene and DS Eddie Carmine must race against time to catch the killer. Because there are four doors left, and four murders will fill them....

From taking a bullet for a frightened schoolgirl in Alabama to riding on the bonnet of a tank during the liberation of France, each of the hard-drinking, chain-smoking clerics featured in Priests de la Résistance were willing to give their lives for a world they believed in - even as their superiors beckoned them to safety. In this spellbinding new collection, the Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie, bestselling author of A Field Guide to the English Clergy, presents fifteen men and women who dared to stand up to fascism, proving that some hearts will never be conquered.

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Adam Lambrianu understands only too well the fearsome family legacy he's inherited. He only wants to make his family proud, but as a renowned playboy and bad boy he has a wild and reckless reputation. Scarlet Lambrianu knows her little brother needs to step up in running the family casino business and empire, but she also worries the old gangland ways don’t interest him anymore. Adam's sure he can make his own money and build his own legacy in his own unique way. Desperate to keep Adam in line, old family friend Julie Gold is called in to help.

DS Mark (Max) Lomax is a former Special Demonstration Squad officer - a Special Branch unit dedicated to infiltrating political and extremist groups. Following a botched stakeout of a north London gangster, he finds himself on enforced leave and is called back into his old world of half-truths and conflicting agendas. As he digs into the death of the civil servant, Max is obstructed at every turn, forcing him to turn to the people he once betrayed for help. With political reputations on the line, the case becomes less about uncovering the truth, than burying it for good.

Phobia is a series of five DS Jason Smith cases he worked on before we met him in the first book, Smith. We get insights into what molded him into the detective sergeant we first get a glimpse of in Smith. Smith quickly realizes that police work isn't always cut and dry. Justice is not always black and white; there are many shades of gray in between.

As a rousing Strauss piece is reaching its crescendo in Maningpool Civic Hall, the talented yet obnoxious conductor Sir Noel Grampian is shot dead in full view of the Municipal Orchestra and the audience. It was no secret that he had many enemies - musicians and music critics among them - but to be killed mid-flow suggests an act of the coldest calculation. Told through the letters and documents sent by DI Alan Hope to his wife as he puzzles through the dauntingly vast pool of suspects and scant physical evidence in the case.

When little Julie goes missing in summer 1986, David and Samuel share the terrible secret of her disappearance. Thirty years later, David has become a famous author and Samuel his publisher. Both receive identical manuscript chapters telling the story of what really happened that tragic summer. 

Having devoted his studies to optics and refraction, an impulsive scientist named Griffin has rendered himself invisible. Unable to reverse the effects, his struggle to survive grows desperate until he realizes that there are benefits to living out of the public eye. Increasingly isolated, he soon spirals into a life of crime and degenerates into madness. He can't see that he has become his own worst enemy.

It's never going to be you. Then one day you hear the clatter of automatic fire at the mall. You have been drawn into the chaos and terror of an active shooter event. What do you do? Who do you turn to? Be a Hero is the essential guide to terrorist attacks that will help you survive. Former Special Air Service terror expert John Geddes will explain how to cope with a life-threatening event.

Organizational structures are ineffective when they do not delineate and define accountabilities. Brian Dive focuses upon the implications of clear accountability for leadership, with an in-depth analysis of “distributed leadership” - a concept neglected in the leadership literature to date. Dive explores the relationship between leadership, accountability, and organizational structure. He argues that the majority of leadership-related problems arise not from ineffective individuals but from organizational structures that lack accountable jobs.