Showing results by narrator "Peter Wickham" in All Categories

Winter 1795. Lieutenant John Pearce, reckoning to have finally ditched his old enemy, Admiral Hotham, has found a new one in Henry Digby, previously a friend. Meanwhile, Pearce's pregnant and recently widowed lover is adamant they cannot be seen together for the sake of their unborn child as she seeks respectability in society. Aboard HMS Flirt as part of the squadron led by Horatio Nelson, Pearce and his Pelicans soon join them on a reconnaissance which results in the destruction of a key French battery.

During a blackout on the streets of London in late 1944, a young Polish land girl, Rosa Nowak, is suddenly and brutally killed. But the police, their resources already stretched by war regulations and the thriving black market, cannot find any reason why someone would want to murder an innocent refugee. For the former police inspector John Madden, the crime hits close to home. Rosa was working on his farm, and he feels personally responsible for not protecting her.

When a severed hand from the vault of Bath Abbey Churchyard arrives on Peter Diamond's desk, he is delighted to hear that, far from being a medieval relic, it is from the 1980s. But the vault is part of the house where Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written, and a fanatical American professor is thwarting their investigation. Events are complicated even further when the professor's wife goes missing....

It is 1921 and a terrible discovery has been made at a manor house in Surrey - the bloodied bodies of Colonel Fletcher, his wife and two of their staff. The victims have all been stabbed and the lack of disturbance in the house suggests that the attack was one of terrifying speed. The Surrey police force seem ready to put the murders down to robbery with violence, but Detective Inspector madden from Scotland Yard sees things slightly differently.

Privateersman Harry Ludlow and his partner and younger brother, James, find that murder and intrigue take up more of their time than the hunt for fat trading vessels. Arriving in the squalid, seething port of Genoa, they find it a tinderbox of tension, fed by the discovery of a hanged British sea captain and packs of English and French sailors at each other's throats.

When Peter Maxwell attends a school reunion of the class of '65, all is not as it seems among his old chums. They are career men, family men - but the years have taken their toll, and the seething tensions of the school years surface in unlikely ways. At the end of the reunion weekend, a man is dead, hanging from the bell rope of the old school. When a second death occurs, Maxwell finds himself in the midst of a murder investigation. What is the secret that has been lurking under Maxwell's nose all these years - and could he be on the murderer's list for killing number three?

The position of Assistant Headteacher has become available at Leighford High, but Peter "Mad Max" Maxwell won't be applying. He has his hands full juggling his beloved Sixth Form, fatherhood and impending marriage. When a member of staff dies after a special lunch for the prospective Assistant Headteachers, Maxwell's hopes for a quiet term, followed by a quiet wedding, are swiftly shattered, as he finds himself embroiled in yet another sinister murder case.

There comes a time in every teacher's life when he must face his nemesis - the Ofsted Inspection. On the third day, with the atmosphere at Leighford High decidedly fraught, one of the Inspectors is found stabbed to death. Events move quickly, and the Head is arrested on suspicion of the murder. But Peter Maxwell, Head of Sixth Form, cannot help but notice that Sally Meninger, the Ofsted Humanities expert, is not as distraught at her colleague's death as one might expect....

'The Museum Detectives' Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton have been contacted by the curator of the National Gallery. He is getting in touch at the request of the artist, Walter Sickert, famously suspected of being Jack the Ripper. The dead body of a young woman, who had been an artist's model, has been found at the back of the gallery, and Sickert has been arrested on suspicion of her murder. When a second similar murder occurs, Sickert is once again implicated.

While riding the Wild Water, a man is killed in the float ahead, and Max and the girls become witnesses to murder. The corpses multiply as Maxwell nears the end of his search for the truth - but will one of them be his own niece?

World War Two has ended, but the peace is threatened when a shocking murder takes place in the Sussex countryside. Before long, police discover a link to another killing hundreds of miles away.... Scotland Yard detective Billy Styles is on the case, but a strange twist of fate brings former DI John Madden into the investigations. As the victim count rises, it becomes clear that to catch this serial killer they must act quickly.

Fisher College at Cambridge lies between St John’s and Trinity Colleges. Here one morning the bed makers and gyps, clamouring for admission on the last day of term were admitted to find, lying across the path, the body of one of the College porters. The murder of the porter begins a mystery which deepens when it is found that the unpopular Dean of the college is missing.

Having had his retirement snatched from him by malfunctioning technology, Peter “Mad Max” Maxwell finds himself facing yet another year at Leighford High School. His wife, Jacquie, is further annoyed when a family holiday quickly becomes an impromptu Year Seven trip to the Isle of Wight. The situation takes another turn for the worse when the wife of Tom Medlicott, the new Head of Art, goes missing.

Written in 1873 it was autobiographical and the heroine Elfride Swancourt is based on Hardy's first wife Emma Gifford. The novel tells the tail of a the love triangle between a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds.

History teacher Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell, a bit of a maverick, is sent on a short-term swap with another teacher at a nearby private school, Grimonds.

1794...Returning to England, Harry and James become embroiled in a vicious struggle between rival smugglers played out in the English Channel. Witnesses to a bloody confrontation, they flee to Deal - only to find that, behind its picturesque facade, the town is a haven for traders in contraband, seething with corruption and violence.

It was Adam Smith (1723-1790) who first established economics as a separate branch of knowledge, and many would say his work has never been surpassed. The Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776, is the definitive text for all who believe that economic decisions are best left to markets, not governments. At the heart of Smith's doctrine is an optimistic view of the effects of self-interest. Though each individual seeks only personal gain, the collective result is increased prosperity, which benefits society as a whole.

17th May 1899. Queen Victoria lays the foundation stone on the site of a new museum being built in South Kensington, which she names as The Victoria and Albert Museum. Shortly after, Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton are called to the site because the dead body of a man, Andrew Page, has been found in one of the trenches. The more Wilson and Fenton dig, the more they discover other potential motives for Page's murder, some with potentially explosive implications for the royals and the government.

It is 1795. As war spreads across the globe, Harry Ludlow joins the struggle for the richest trade in the world. When half his crew is illegally pressed into the Royal Navy by the vicious Captain Toner, Harry sets off in pursuit. Toner's ship reaches the West Indies with Harry close behind, and they sail into a maelstrom of piracy, corruption, and murder, stirred up by a French privateer. Soon, the British officer in charge of the station calls upon each man to help as best he can.

New Orleans, 1795. The discovery of an abandoned Spanish merchant ship off the coast of America plunges the Ludlows into a far-reaching conspiracy fuelled by jealousy, ambition and nationalistic fervour. The Bucephalas lies trapped under the gaping muzzles of the 32-punder Spanish guns of New Orleans’ harbour fort. It quickly becomes clear that the corridors of the governor’s residence are just as busy with treachery, double-dealing, and murder as the back alleys of the sweltering city outside.