Showing results by narrator "Kris Dyer" in All Categories

When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France years before; the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time at which the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realises that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman at the heart of this bizarre and unsolved past murder.

When Kev's girlfriend is killed in a hit-and-run, he thinks he's suffered the worst. Haunted by his past, Kev attempts to put his life back together, throwing himself into his new relationship with Stella and his job as a literary agent. Then a book lands on his desk that changes everything. And he quickly realises his nightmare has only just begun.

On Christmas Eve in 1988, seven-year-old Alfie Marsden vanished in the Wentshire Forest Pass when a burst tyre forced his father, Sorrel, to stop the car. Leaving the car to summon the emergency services, Sorrel returned to find his son gone. No trace of the child, nor his remains, have ever been found. Alfie Marsden was declared officially dead in 1995. Elusive online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the disappearance, interviewing six witnesses, to try to find out what really happened that fateful night.

The murder, a brutal stabbing, definitely took place on Guy Fawkes night. It was definitely by the bonfire on the village green. There were definitely a number of witnesses to a row between a group of Teddy Boys. And yet, was it definitely clear to anybody exactly what they had seen? In the writhing, violent shadows, it seems as if the truth may have gone up in smoke.

In early 2020, wildlife cameraman James Aldred was commissioned to film the lives of a family of Goshawks in the New Forest, his childhood home. He began to plan a treetop hide in a remote site that would allow him to film the Gos nest, the newly hatched chicks and the lives of these elusive and enchanting birds. Then lockdown. And as the world retreated, something remarkable happened. The noise of our everyday stilled. No more cars, no more off-roaders, no more airplanes roaring in the skies, no one in the Goshawk woods–except James.

Behind the stage lights and word-perfect soliloquies, sinister secrets are lurking in the wings. The mysteries in this collection reveal the dark side to theatre and performing arts: a world of backstage dealings, where unscrupulous actors risk everything to land a starring role, costumed figures lead to mistaken identities, and on-stage deaths begin to look a little too convincing. This expertly curated thespian anthology features 14 stories from giants of the classic crime genre.

Having conquered the world's taste buds and established itself as a staple in our daily lives, coffee has mirrored the moods and movements of society for centuries - yet, how much do we know about its history? In his riveting new book, A Short History of Coffee, Gordon Kerr investigates the fascinating history behind the global obsession with coffee, from its Ethiopian origins, the legends, myths, geographical locations and somewhat eccentric characters that have helped make it the staple that it is today.

Don't be a cliché. Don't stay in your bedroom grunting and grumbling. How about getting motivated, energized, and start making a difference?! The Art of Being a Brilliant Teenager teaches you how to become your very best self - and how to figure out who that is, exactly. Stay cool under all the pressures you're facing, and plot a map for the future that takes you wherever it is you want to go. Become proactive, determined, successful, and most importantly: happy!

In 2005 London, two teenage boys commit a crime so horrendous that the entire nation is shocked and outraged. When Abigail Riley's body is found in an underground shelter, DS Fraser Harvey finds himself hunting her killers--whose depravity is matched only by their naivety. Eleven years later, when the young murderers are released to faraway countries with new identities, Harvey remains haunted by the case, convinced that one--or both--will kill again.

They were bored, broke, burned out, and turning 40, so when Ben and Dinah saw the advert looking for a husband and wife team with young kids to write a guidebook about family travel around Britain, they jumped at the chance. With naïve visions of staring moodily across Coniston Water and savouring Cornish pasties, they embark on a mad-cap five-month trip with daughter Phoebe, four, and son Charlie, two, embracing the freedom of the open road with a spirit of discovery and an industrial supply of baby wipes.

When a distressed young woman arrives at their station claiming her friend has been abducted, and that the man threatened to come back and 'claim her next', detectives Carrigan and Miller are thrust into a terrifying new world of stalking and obsession. Under scrutiny themselves, and with old foes and enmities resurfacing, how long will Carrigan and Miller have to find out the truth behind what these two women have been subjected to?

A shipload of migrant workers flees the pandemic-stricken UK, seeking a fresh start in Australia. For nine-year-old Cleary the journey promises adventure, for former nurse Billie it’s a chance to put a shameful mistake behind her, while struggling schoolteacher Tom hopes for a brighter future. But when a crew member is murdered and people start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast descends into chaos. Trapped on the ship, the trio must join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath.

These 25 new stories mark Graham Swift's return to the short form after seven acclaimed novels and confirm him as a master storyteller. They unite into a richly peopled vision of a country that is both a crucible of history and a maze of contemporary confusions.

When Blake Barton opens the door to a stranger one morning, he comes face to face with an unimaginable evil. Because this stranger claims to be the devil, and he promises to kill Blake—not now, but in six days, six hours, and six minutes exactly. Plunged into a nightmare race to save his wife and young son, Blake finds himself fighting not only the stranger but an army of young men who call themselves the devil's disciples—men who will do anything to please their master. As time runs out, Blake realizes that in order to fight evil, he must find the devil inside himself.

Bachelor John Marcher is haunted by the premonition that something terrible lies in store for him, like a "beast in the jungle" lying in wait. So he spends his life in idleness, unable to carry out his dreams or desires, while his friend May Bartram, curious to see how this spectacular fate will manifest, helps watch out for the arrival of the beast.

For some, there is a high price to pay for ambition and success. The toll it can take on our mental health can be significant, particularly if we are born with the "Worry" gene. In Beat Stress at Work, management trainer Mark Simmonds helps you understand the effects stress and anxiety can have on your mental health and provides tools and advice to find your way through work-induced struggles. Mark sheds light on the difficulty of discussing mental health with colleagues and employers and identifies the best ways for navigating your way through a mental health crisis.

When the police arrive at the holiday bungalow of the haughty Justice Ireton to find a man killed by gunshot and the high court judge brandishing a pistol, the case seems as straightforward as it is scandalous. Yet, with the incongruous assemblage of physical evidence, the judge's denial of any participation in the crime and the recent events of his daughter's love life combined, the deceptively simple case is soon steeped in complexity. At a loss in the bizarre circumstances, the local force calls in the larger-than-life sleuth Dr Gideon Fell.

Mars is back. Suddenly everyone - from Elon Musk to Ridley Scott to Donald Trump - is talking about going to the Red Planet. When the Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon in 1969, many people imagined Mars would be next. However NASA’s Viking 1, which landed in 1976, was just a robot. The much-anticipated crewed mission failed to materialise, defeated by a combination of technological and political challenges.

The theatres are padlocked. Christmas has been cancelled. It is 1657, and the unloved English Republic is eight years old. Though Cromwell's joyless grip on power appears immovable, many still look to Charles Stuart's dissolute and threadbare court-in-exile, and some are prepared to risk their lives plotting a restoration. For the officers of the Republic, constant vigilance is needed. So, when the bloody corpse of a Royalist spy is discovered in a small Essex village, why is the local magistrate so reluctant to investigate?

Summertime, 1935. On a lake near Berlin, a young man is out sailing when he glimpses a woman reclining in the prow of a passing boat. Their eyes meet - and one of history's greatest conspiracies is born. Harro Schulze-Boysen had already shed blood in the fight against Nazism by the time he and Libertas Haas-Heye began their whirlwind romance. She joined the cause, and soon the two lovers were leading a network of antifascists that stretched across Berlin's bohemian underworld.