Showing results by narrator "Matthew Davies" in All Categories

Twelve little oddities - an assortment of the bizarre, unexpected, charming, unsettling, and downright peculiar. Into darkness or light, there are many ways to escape.

In his new collection, Bitter Waters, Brenchley has assembled stories queer and weird: a man with morbidly sensitive hearing sets sail to chart dangerous rocks called the Silences; a ship's chandler from among his shadowed stock gives an old friend a compass that guides through Hell rather than point north; a eunuch and his dwarf lover leave the Sultan's harem to visit the baths of a city poisoned by magic; a youth who climbed the echelons of power thanks to his looks and guile finds being on the losing side of war has forced his to return to his sordid, early life.

London 1888, Jack the Ripper is on the loose terrorizing the citizens of Whitechapel. The Queen of England sends a mysterious agent to uncover the truth of the vile monster hunting England's streets. The trail of blood leads to an even bigger mystery and to a darker enemy of the Crown itself. While on Mont Orgueil, Grace Flynn, a prisoner of both England and France, awaits her execution for a very long list of crimes.

In spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam-era Winter Soldier hearings, Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered veterans to expose war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are the powerful words, images, and documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When Alice’s Uncle Sam brings home a mysterious calendar that’s short on chocolate but big on surprises, she is thrown into an advent she never dreamed of. Codes arrive by text message and open the doors in the calendar, drawing Alice and Sam into fantastical new worlds that are wondrous, frightening and beautiful - and strangely familiar.

A moving and tender meditation on loving, living and dying by one of our greatest Anglican spiritual writers.

Greta knows two things to be true. The first: Trolls don't venture into the forest, especially during the day. The second: Kings don't save peddlers' daughters from those trolls, and they certainly don't deposit them atop royal horses and personally escort them home. But sometimes, they do. And sometimes afterward, life gets very complicated....

Being able to take innovative and creative approaches to new challenges is crucial for leadership success. Decision Making and Problem Solving will help you to learn key techniques and models to confidently make the best decisions and solve the hardest problems. Using checklists, exercises, case studies and tried-and-tested methods, leadership guru John Adair provides a clear framework that can generate ideas and inspire confidence in your team - so you can spot the solution in every problem, and create ideas to rival even the best strategists.

The long hidden heart of the Twisted Curse had been found, concealed in a realm that no angel can enter, where magic runs wild and time is just another direction. The Twisted Curse is the key to ending the Eternity War and it can only be broken by someone willing to traverse the depths of Faerie. Unfortunately, Mitch has other things on his mind.

Meet the hapless Jeremy: a man in his late 50s, he scrapes together a living in Paris by writing soft-core pornography under the saucy guise of "Nathalie Cray". When his all-but-estranged sister tells him their father is on his deathbed, Jeremy reluctantly travels back to his parental home in the depths of the English countryside. Confronted with a life that he had always been eager to escape, his return marks the start of an emotionally fraught journey into the family's checkered past.

A masterful reimagining of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol with this darkly entertaining and moving exploration of the twisted relationship between Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley.

Brody Taylor loves hacking humans. After all, people are the weakest link in all computer systems. If he's hired to break into your network, he will find and exploit the weak point. You. The problem with always manipulating people is that even those closest to you don't trust you. And Brody's just fallen in love with Melanie, a zany, beautiful French animal rights activist. But she's in love with the character he's trapped himself in, not the real Brody, social engineer and computer hacker. Can Brody social engineer his way to the truth and save his relationship with Melanie?

Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, a young boy who is sent to stay at his grandmother's for the summer in a serene fishing village is met with the adventure of a lifetime. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother's friend, Mr. Girandole - a man who knows the true story of Cinderella's slipper - and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother's house.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

It’s hard to imagine things could get worse after one’s parents die in a greenhouse explosion. But that is precisely what happens to Basil and his younger sister, Dahlia. They escape from the social worker who wants to split them up to different foster homes by jumping off a moving train, only to find themselves wounded (Dahlia) and bedraggled (Basil) and without a soul to care for them. What’s more, they’re lost in the wilds of New York City.

Tim Mason’s gripping new novel finds Inspector Charles Field hunting a ruthless serial killer who is terrorizing Florence Nightingale and her nurses in Crimea in 1855. But when the main suspect turns up dead, Field determines the case is closed. Or is it? Twelve years later in London, amidst the turmoil surrounding the expansion of voting rights, Field discovers a woman’s body, mouth covered by the killer’s signature embroidered rose. Did Field suspect the wrong man before, or is he dealing with a copycat?

Nobody liked Gloria Wiggins, a woman who regarded anyone who did not acquiesce to her jaundiced view of the world with disdain. James Baxter, the previous vicar, had been one of those, and her scurrilous outburst in the church one Sunday had hastened his death. And now, years later, the woman was dead, hanging from a beam in her garage. Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Clare Yarwood had seen the body, interviewed the woman's acquaintances, and those who had hated her.

Originally published in 1927, these short stories represent the fifth and final collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's tales featuring Sherlock Holmes. Included are stories originally published in Strand Magazine beginning in 1921 and stretching through 1927.

A day at the races for Detective Inspector Tremayne, idyllic at the outset, soon changes. A horse is dead, and then the owner's daughter is found murdered, and Tremayne's there when the body is discovered. The question is, was Tremayne set up, in the wrong place at the right time? He's the cast-iron alibi for one of the suspects, and he knows that one murder leads to two, and more often than not, to three.

An introspective novel of manners at once comic and tragic, The Longest Journey tells of a sensitive and intelligent young man with an intense imagination and a certain amount of literary talent. He sets out full of hope to become a writer, but gives up his aspirations for those of the conventional world, gradually sinking into a life of petty conformity and bitter disappointments.