Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

In the early 1970s, Britain seemed to be tottering on the brink of the abyss. Under Edward Heath, the optimism of the Sixties had become a distant memory. Now the headlines were dominated by strikes and blackouts, unemployment and inflation. As the world looked on in horrified fascination, Britain seemed to be tearing itself apart. And yet, amid the gloom, glittered a creativity and cultural dynamism that would influence our lives long after the nightmarish Seventies had been forgotten.

When George Abbershaw is invited to Black Dudley Manor for the weekend, he has only one thing on his mind - proposing to Meggie Oliphant. Unfortunately for George, things don't quite go according to plan. A harmless game turns decidedly deadly and suspicions of murder take precedence over matrimony. Trapped in a remote country house with a murderer, George can see no way out. But Albert Campion can.

Bryan Duffy is Witness X - a government agent implicated in a national scandal and banished to Spain until the agenda can be moved on. But when North Korean hit men attack a seeming innocent on the streets of London, Duffy is called back to the fold. He is tasked with finding the woman's assailants and bringing them to justice. Why has the woman been attacked? Duffy investigates and finds himself sucked into a whirlwind of action and mayhem that is particularly well suited to his special set of skills....

Bjorn Thorsson joined the Special Air Service to forget the horrors of his childhood. He killed for Queen and country, and he was good at it. He quits the army and settles down, looking for a quieter life. When his beautiful sister, Gudrun, finds herself in trouble with the owner of a hedge fund, Bjorn promises to get her out of danger. But there’s another factor in play. Group 15, a clandestine government agency, has plans for the financier, and Bjorn is in their way. Bjorn must outwit the Group in the streets of London and in the Highlands of Scotland if he is to protect his sister and survive.

John Tradescant the Younger has inherited his father’s unique collection of plants along with his unerring ability to nurture them. But as gardener to Charles I, he confronts an unbearable dilemma when England descends into Civil War. Fleeing from the chaos, John travels to the Royalist colony of Virginia in America. But the virgin land is not uninhabited. John’s plant hunting brings him to live with the native people, and he learns to love and respect their way of life just as it is threatened by the colonial settlers.

Bury your enemies, and bury them deep. John Milton thought he was done with Avi Bachman. The most dangerous man he's ever known has been incarcerated in Angola, the brutal Louisiana prison. Inmates rarely leave Angola. Once you go in, the only way out is in a box. But Bachman is no ordinary prisoner. He was an assassin for the Mossad, and he has favours to call in.

Cloud Atlas features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on death row; and Zachry, a young Pacific islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation.

A brutal double murder on a Norfolk beach horrifies the town of Cromer. The way the victims died is chilling and so Norfolk’s Major Investigation Team task DS Ashley Knight to manage the case. It soon becomes clear that the murders were carefully planned and the finger of suspicion points to an organised crime gang, but as the evidence mounts, a far more sinister theory emerges.

Belfast-born Jimmy Walker is a career criminal, desperate to leave the world of organised crime behind. He’s made just enough money to think about going straight. He wants to be a family man. He wants to stay alive for his wife and son. He wants to be the man they deserve. He reluctantly agrees to one final job with the intention that it will be his last. Little does Jimmy know that he’s been set-up. The sins of his past are about to catch up with him.

Terry Flynt is a struggling legal clerk, desperately trying to get promoted. And then he is given the biggest opportunity of his career: to help defend a millionaire accused of murdering a woman in his hotel suite. The only problem is that the accused man, Vernon James, turns out to be not only someone he knows, but someone he loathes. This case could potentially make Terry's career, but how can he defend a former friend who betrayed him so badly?

War has swept across Marquensas. Ruthless raiders have massacred the inhabitants of Beran's Hill, including Gwen, the beloved wife of Declan Smith. Hollow of heart, his hopes burned to ashes, Declan swears to track down and destroy the raiders, an ambition shared by Baron Daylon Dumarch, whose family was massacred as they fled the capital. Meanwhile Hava is closing in on the whereabouts of those who unleashed the murderous hordes.

Mark Dawson's Group Fifteen Files. Quick, lightning-paced, action.

They call him 'Scorpion'. No-one knows his real name, and the only people who have seen his face are dead. He works for the highest bidder, and he's never missed a target.

The assassin appears in London with the name of an investigative reporter on his list. But has Scorpion met his match? The reporter has a protector - John Milton. And Milton might be the only man in the world more dangerous than him.

Jerry Grayson is an ordinary man who chose an extraordinary career. At age 17 he became the youngest helicopter pilot ever to serve in the Royal Navy. By age 25 he was the most decorated peacetime naval pilot in history.

John Milton has been off the grid for six months. He surfaces in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and immediately finds himself drawn into a vicious battle with the narco-gangs that control the borderlands. He saves the life of an idealistic young journalist who has been targeted for execution. The only way to keep her safe is to smuggle her into Texas. Working with the only untouchable cops in the city and a bounty hunter whose motives are unclear, Milton must keep her safe until the crossing can be made.

John Milton has started to hope that he might have a future. He has a job driving a taxi around the streets of San Francisco. He has his anonymity and his solitude. Being invisible has become a comfortable habit. He doesn't want to be found. But when a girl he drives to a party goes missing, Milton is worried. Especially when two dead bodies are discovered, and the police start treating him as their prime suspect. Milton is a fugitive from the British Secret Service, and a man in his position needs extra attention like he needs a hole in the head.

This is the definitive account—insightful and nuanced—of the life of the Duke of Cambridge as he approaches his milestone birthday. Jobson explores the complex character of the man who will one day reign as King William V. It is the story of the making of a king for our times. The story of the making of a monarch for the 21st century.

When a man's wife leaves him under suspicious circumstances, he sets off in search for her, unprepared for the guilty secrets he's about to drag back into the light. A man is tempted by a luxury apartment with a top-of-the-range kitchen. But there is a heavy price to pay for this glamorous new life. And a couple with their marriage on the rocks go on a hike through the Derbyshire countryside as another way to avoid their real problems. Mick Herron's skill for tension, humour and memorable twists are captured in his short stories, collected here for the first time.

Just returned from years overseas on a secret mission, Albert Campion is relaxing in his bath when his servant Lugg and a lady of unmistakably aristocratic bearing appear in his flat carrying the corpse of a woman. At first Campion is unwilling to get involved, but he is forced to bring his powers of protection to bear on the case, and to solve not only the mystery of the murdered woman but also the alarming disappearance of some well-known art treasures.

In Cambridge, 1355, the colleges of the fledgling university are as much at odds with each other as they are with the ordinary townfolk. This tension has recently been heightened by the return of two well-born murderers after receiving the King's pardon, showing no remorse but ready to confront those who helped convict them. And in the midst of this Bartholomew the physician is called to the local mill to examine two corpses. It is almost a relief to be able to turn his back on the fractious town, but as always in Cambridge nothing is disconnected.

A new novel from internationally best-selling author Raymond E. Feist. The world of Garn once boasted five great kingdoms, until the King of Ithrace was defeated and every member of his family executed by Lodavico, the ruthless King of Sandura, a man with ambitions to rule the world. Ithrace's ruling family were the legendary Firemanes and represented a great danger to the other kings. Now four great kingdoms remain, on the brink of war. But rumour has it that the newborn son of the last king of Ithrace survived....