Showing results by narrator "Peter Noble" in All Categories

June 1554. Professional assassin Jack Blackjack has been dispatched to the palace of Woodstock, where Queen Mary's half sister, Princess Elizabeth, is being kept under close guard. Jack's employer has reason to believe that a spy has been installed within the princess' household, and Jack has been ordered to kill her. Jack has no choice but to agree. But he arrives at Woodstock to discover that a murder has already been committed.

The Photurians - a hivemind of sentient AIs and machines - were awakened by humanity as part of a complex political trap. But they broke free and evolved, and now the human race is almost finished. Once we spanned dozens of star systems; now only four remain, and Earth is being evacuated. But the Photes can infect us, and among the thousands rescued from our home world may be enemy agents.

In 1865 a broken Admiral Robert FitzRoy locked himself in his dressing room and cut his throat. His grand meteorological project had failed. Yet only a decade later, FitzRoy’s storm-warning system and ‘forecasts’ would return, the model for what we use today. In an age when a storm at sea was evidence of God’s great wrath, 19th-century meteorologists had to fight against convention and religious dogma.

Refugee camps in Africa are swelling. And Europe has closed its borders. The refugees have no future, no hope, and no money to pay the vast sums now demanded by people smugglers. But what they do have is time. And then an angel arrives from reality TV. When German model and star presenter Nadeche Hackenbusch comes to film at the largest of the camps, one young refugee sees a unique opportunity: to organise a march to Europe, in full view of the media.

In 18th-century Venice, Minguillo Fasan, heir to a fortune, contrives to dispatch of his sister, Marcella, condemning her to the fate of a nun. But Marcella Fasan is tougher than Minguillo imagines, and, aided by a servant, a painter, a skin-obsessed doctor, a Scottish merchant and a cigar-smoking pornographer, she pitches her wits against her brother….

This novel has all the makings of a classic murder mystery, but with a twist: as Attorney-General Anstruther Blayton leads the court through prosecution and defence, Inspector Fenby carries out his investigation. All this occurs while the identity of figure in the dock is kept tantalisingly out of reach. Excellent Intentions is a classic crime novel laced with irreverent wit, first published in 1939.

Years ago, one starship and its crew discovered an alien entity which changed everything. Its discovery finally bought an end to the interstellar war being fought between the masses of humanity and the few pockets of genetically engineered colonists. An uneasy peace was negotiated as the human race realised there was something else sharing our universe. Something that had plans for us. But the aliens have remained silent. The earthers have begun to test the edges of the peace treaty.

East Africa, 1913. The disgraced English aristocrat Everard Dominey stumbles out of the bush and comes face to face with his lookalike, the German Baron von Ragastein. Months later, Dominey returns to London and resumes his glittering social life. But is it really Dominey who has come back - or a German secret agent seeking to infiltrate English high society?

'I'll stay with them no matter what happens. Someone who has mercy in his heart for humans has mercy for every living thing.' When war came to Alaa Aljaleel's hometown, he made a remarkable decision to stay behind, caring for the people and animals caught in the crossfire. While thousands were forced to flee, Alaa spent his days carrying out perilous rescue missions in his makeshift ambulance and building a sanctuary for the city's abandoned cats.

London is in flux. The clop of the hansom cab has given way to the madness of the motorcar. And Sherlock Holmes, safe in the bee-loud glades of the Sussex downs, is lured back to London when a problem is posed to him by Dr. Watson and Watson's friend, Col. Higgins. Is the transformation of Eliza Doolittle from girl of the streets to duchess more than it seems? Is it really the work of Henry Higgins's phonetics lessons, or has another girl been substituted for her, and why? Has the original girl been murdered? Even Eliza's father can't say for sure.

Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms. For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the parts for gigantic spaceships. You're done with the pretentions of the capital and its unfathomable architecture. You're done with the people of the Bund, their easy superiority and unstoppable spread throughout the city of London and beyond.

Child psychiatrist Dr Mike Shooter sheds light on the painful issues and universal experience of growing up, through the stories of his patients and their families. Growing up isn't easy. We can be at our most vulnerable and confused. And the right help isn't always there when we need it most. For over 40 years, psychiatrist Mike Shooter has listened to children and adolescents in crisis, helping them to find their stories and begin to make sense of their lives.

South Africa, 1987. Apartheid. When Leon, a white 19-year-old prison guard working on death row, commits an inexplicable act of violence, killing seven black men in a hail of bullets, the outcome of the trial - and the court's sentence - seems a foregone conclusion. Hotshot lawyer John Weber reluctantly takes on the seemingly unwinnable case. A passionate opponent of the death penalty, John discovers that young Leon worked on death row in the nation's most notorious prison, under traumatic conditions....

Tony Blair's decision to back George W. Bush in his attack on Iraq will go down as a defining moment for Blair - and for Britain. As Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock was centre stage in the dramatic months leading up to the Iraq War. After the war he was Special Envoy for Iraq, the UK's highest authority on the ground, and he worked side by side with Paul Bremer, the US administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in Baghdad and saw firsthand the impact of the divisive turf wars back in Washington.

I’m lying here in a bed, my head full of regret, with only a little bird flitting through a tree to comfort me. Friends want to visit, but I refuse them. So my carer, Sheila, has given me a task to keep me occupied. An A to Z list. Think of a part of my body for each letter. Tell a little tale about it. When I reach H for heart, what will I say? How we loved to string crocheted hearts in trees? How our hearts steadily unravelled? So I begin with A. Adam’s apple. Will you be there to catch me when I fall?

Young, bright and sexy, Carla Vitale has been handpicked to run Supertech, Africa’s leading independent engineering firm. Then one Friday afternoon in Cape Town, her dream is shattered. Her boss and mentor, Nial Townley, disappears, his luxury vehicle is found in a crevice at the bottom of Chapman’s Peak and $USD 20m is missing from the Supertech’s overseas accounts. Three months later and the police are no closer to solving the riddle. No job, no car, no phone, Carla turns to the one person she believes can help: software hacker turned day-trader, Daniel Le Fleur.

The gripping story of a young boy and his family, driven from their home by war and indiscriminate violence. Like millions of others, they attempt the treacherous journey across their war-torn continent, trying to reach the safety of Europe. The truth is, Europe doesn't want them, and thousands die every month at the hands of thieves and profiteering men to whom life is cheap. Kalu believes that he can lead his family to safety. They have money and a plan, and Kalu is, after all, the smartest man in Monguno.

In a remote city, a renowned performance artist commits suicide on video; from a long-abandoned space station comes impossible footage of a dead body; and in an isolated outpost, a secretive cult believes they are communing with the ancient alien Masters. How are they connected? Inspector Keon is trying to investigate, but once again his life has been flipped upside down. His wife, Alysha, is alive. His long search is over. Or so he thinks.

Two lieges—King Lanius, who is of royal blood, and King Grus, the usurper—now share the throne of Avornis. The former wields no real power, kept impotent by the regents surrounding him. The latter mans the battle lines, determined to protect the kingdom from a fearsome, immortal god who was expelled from heaven. To the north, the city-state Chernagor is being torn asunder by a savage civil war that threatens to spill past the border at any moment. Catastrophe looms for Avornis and even two kings united may not be strong enough to save her.

More than four centuries ago, the Scepter of Mercy was lost to the king of Avornis, and each subsequent liege has promised—and failed—to return the powerful talisman to its rightful home. Now, young Lanius, the only surviving son of King Mergus, rules, though he is considered illegitimate and must abide by the decisions of regents. Still, the legacy of the missing scepter ultimately belongs to him.