Showing results by narrator "Kim Hicks" in All Categories

Fractured skulls. Gas masks. Brain buckets. Vats of acid. Pickled body parts. Not the usual tools of trade, but for chief forensic medical scientist Derek and forensic secretary Pauline they were just part of a normal day in the office inside the world-famous Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy's Hospital in London. Derek has played a pivotal role in investigating some of the UKs most high-profile mass disasters and murder cases.

In May 1943, a young, pregnant Frenchwoman called Lucie Aubrac engineered the escape of her husband Raymond from the clutches of Klaus Barbie, the feared Gestapo chief. She later ambushed the prison vans in which members of the Resistance were being driven to an almost certain death. Spirited out of France by the RAF at the end of 1943, nine months pregnant, she arrived in London a heroine. In 1983, when both Aubracs had retired, Klaus Barbie was put on trial in France.

Summoned to the riverside by the desperate, scribbled note of an old friend, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain find themselves on board the seamen's floating hospital, an old hulk known only as The Blood, where prejudice, ambition and murder seethe beneath a veneer of medical respectability. Onshore, a young woman, a known prostitute, is found drowned in a derelict boatyard. A man leaps to his death into the Thames, driven mad by poison and fear. The events are linked - but how?

Lady Audley is universally adored: Beautiful, kind and charming, she enamors all whom she meets. It is not until the strange disappearance of widower George Talboys that her behavior takes an odd turn. George's friend, Robert Audley, Lady Audley's nephew-in-law, is on the case; an upper-class layabout turned detective, he is determined to get to the bottom of things.

An Apple a Day turns the spotlight on sayings that we take for granted, examining their often surprising or fascinating origins, their use, and why they are true – or sometimes aren’t... From wise words originating with the Old Testament and other ancient texts, by way of practical sayings that have gone into the language, to relatively modern gems often coined by poets, writers or philosophers, An Apple a Day shows that most proverbs are as useful today as they ever were when they were newly minted.

Lauren is adopted and keen to know more about her mysterious past. But when she discovers that she may have been snatched from an American family as a baby, her life suddenly feels like a sham. Why will no one answer her questions? How can she find her biological mum and dad? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her?

Daughters of Eden focuses on the lives and fortunes of four very different young women at the outbreak of the Second World War. Marjorie, left at a boarding school by her emigrating mother; plain Poppy, pushed into marriage with a mean-spirited aristocrat; Kate, despised by her father, but determined to prove herself; and man-mad Lily, who turns out to be the bravest of them all. That all of them are chosen to work undercover for the espionage unit at Eden Park is a surprise, not least to them.

The 6th of January is Sherlock Holmes’s birthday, and lucky for Gemma Doyle, January is also the slowest time of the year at both the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. It’s a good time for Gemma and her friends to travel to England for a Holmes Convention. For Gemma, the trip provides an opportunity to visit her parents. Jayne Wilson is excited about seeing all the sites London has to offer, and Ryan Ashburton just wants to spend some time with Gemma. But the trip is immediately derailed when Gemma’s father Henry recognizes his brother-in-law.

In August 2014 Jenny Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given 'two or three years' to live. She didn't know how to react. All responses felt scripted, laden with cliché. Being a writer, she decided to write about it (grappling with the unoriginality even of this) and to tell a story she had not yet told: that of being taken in, aged 15, by the author Doris Lessing and the subsequent 50 years of their complex relationship.

You wouldn’t be ‘barking mad’ if, when asked the definition of certain phrases, ‘the cat got your tongue’ and you ‘clammed up’. Let’s not ‘beat around the bush’; the English language is littered with linguistic quirks that, on closer examination, seem utterly fantastical. In Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas, Judy Parkinson explores the many colourful – but rather incomprehensible – phrases that enhance our language, describing their origins and defining their true meanings.

After the West London Museum suffers extensive fire damage, the shop owners on Baker Street come together to hold an afternoon auction tea to raise funds to rebuild it. Cape Cod's cognoscenti file into Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room, but the auction never happens. Before the gavel can fall, museum-board chair Kathy Lamb is found dead in the back room. Wrapped tightly around her neck is a long rope of decorative knotted tea cups. Gemma's boyfriend in blue, Ryan Ashburton, arrives on the scene with Detective Louise Estrada. But the suspect list is long, and the case is far from elementary.

Legendary stage and movie star Sir Nigel Bellingham arrives on Cape Cod to star in a stage production of The Hound of the Baskervilles put on by the West London Theater Festival. When Sir Nigel, some of the cast, and the director visit the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop at 222 Baker Street, Gemma Doyle realizes that Sir Nigel is not at all suited to the role. He's long past his prime and an old drunk to boot. The cast is not happy, but the show must go on. Before the play opens, Jayne's mother arranges a fundraising afternoon tea to be catered by Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. The tea is a huge success, but, when it's time to leave, Sir Nigel has gone missing - only to be found at the bottom of the rocky cliff, dead. When the police focus their attention on Jayne's mother despite numerous other suspects, the game is once again afoot, and it's up to Gemma and Jayne to clear Jayne's mother's name.

It's a crisp early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country-house weekend. As the chosen caterers, Jayne Watson and Gemma Doyle get to work preparing lavish meals and setting up Sherlockian books and props for entertainment.

I am not a consulting detective, Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells 10-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat, Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat, but her dog, Violet, follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a neighbor's garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few days later, Lauren is back with $10 in hand, wanting to once again hire a consulting detective.

1941. England is at its lowest ebb. At Eden Park, where Poppy, Kate, Lily, Marjorie, and her adopted brother Billy are part of the espionage unit, the authorities have discovered there is a double agent operating in their midst. Lily volunteers to be dropped into France, only to discover that her partner is Scott, Poppy's fiance.

Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.

This inspiring anthology collects enduring and entertaining stories that have enthralled young and old, by the cherished authors whose tales have captivated children for generations. Perfect for the family car trip or at-home listening, these recordings sparkle with the wit and wonder of time-tested storytelling.

Once again Anthony Quinn shows himself a master at writing fiction that works on every level. London, May 1945. Freya Wyley, 20, meets Nancy Holdaway, 18, amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship that will endure on and off for the next two decades.

Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed. Less known than Austen's six great later novels, it demonstrates the wit and sharp observations of Jane Austen - and is shown at its best in audiobook form, with different actresses presenting real characters as they read their letters.

For many years Colette has avoided returning to her homeland - the magical island of Belle-Île-en-Mer in Southern Brittany - afraid to confront the painful memories she left behind. She is living on the Cornish coast when she hears about her mother Thea's failing health and realises that the time has come for her to go home. But can Colette ever forgive Thea for what she has done?