Showing results by narrator "John Craig" in All Categories

With his cape, canes and shovel hat, portly amateur sleuth Dr Gideon Fell cuts an eccentric figure - but his odd appearance belies his sharp intellect and astonishing faculty for deduction. Created by crime novelist John Dickson Carr and supposedly based on fellow author G. K. Chesterton, Dr Fell appeared in 23 novels between 1933 and 1967. This radio collection comprises all eight of the BBC adaptations based on Carr's best-selling books.

An exclusive hotel on a tiny picturesque island seems to be the ideal retreat for Hercule Poirot from the stresses of criminal detection. But with the appearance of the beautiful Arlena Stuart, the quiet and peaceful atmosphere becomes charged with an indefinable erotic tension. And when she is found viciously strangled in a secluded cove, there are few, especially among the women, who seem to feel either surprise or regret.

How do we keep our kids close while cultivating the confidence they’ll need to grow up? How do we navigate the inevitable dips, divides, and potholes? Where do we find the strength, self-awareness, and wisdom that amount to a path forward? Despite the parenting opportunities in the tween years, we often spend time focused on academics and the social concerns of elementary school then quickly pivot to worries about safety, drugs, sex and the rebellious behavioral issues of the teen years.

John Bridges and Bryan Curtis have mapped out everything you need to know for any occasion, from dinner parties to tailgate potlucks. Whether you’re hosting clients for a business lunch at an upscale restaurant or corralling your rowdy friends for a weekend cookout, these are the fundamentals you’ll need to ensure you and your guests have a memorable time.

Moving from Kuwait to Charleston, South Carolina, had been an adventure. Surrendering his life to Jesus Christ was actual treason. And yet, Jesus brought Fazal the most powerful peace he had ever experienced: “It filled the room. It grew roots in my heart and in my soul. It intoxicated me.” In this riveting memoir, Fazal describes how God used extraordinary means to bring a young, underachieving, Muslim immigrant through Desert Storm, across the oceans, into college, and ultimately to pastor a Christian church in North Carolina.

Based on an unprecedented national survey of 50,000 marriages, The Couple Checkup presents the principles for creating a successful couple relationship. The free online profile includes fifteen to twenty categories that are customized based on the relationship stage—whether dating, engaged, or married—the age, and whether or not children are involved.

Loving your neighbors is hard work, right? Jesus' two commands give rise to more angst, more wrestling, more failure, and more challenge than anything else you can try to do. And yet, following those two directions will bring more clarity, joy, and satisfaction to your life than anything you have ever experienced before. For the very first time, you will probably feel you are doing what God really called you to do as a Christian and as a church or ministry leader. In The Neighboring Church authors Brian Mavis and Rick Rusaw explore the hows of loving your neighbors.

When it comes to interacting with guests, churches typically gravitate towards one of two camps: over-the-top, shock-and-awe, let-us-entertain-you or oh-man,-some-people-just-showed-up, underwhelming experience. Each extreme has drawbacks: on one end, people become the center of the universe. On the other, hospitality is effectively ignored in deference to the "serious business" of worship. People Are the Mission proposes a healthy middle, one where guests are esteemed but the gospel is the goal.

Re-Deranged: A Night of Poe is not just a love letter to Poe. This stage play (now radio show) also celebrates the work of director Roger Corman and actor Vincent Price. Throughout the '60s, the duo collaborated on no fewer than six indelible classics of the cult cinema circuit, which today are known to horror fans as part of “Poe Cycle” by American International Pictures (AIP).

Bernard Shaw based his "religious pantomime" Androcles and the Lion on the ancient fable of the runaway slave who pulls a painful thorn from a lion's paw, thereby making a lifelong friend. This tale of a puny Greek tailor triumphing over the Roman emperor is, as always with Shaw, a commentary on the politics of his time, with the emperor standing in for the British government and, indeed, all repressive regimes.

Will the unlikely romance between the rough and tumble stoker, Mat Burke, and Anna Christopherson, the world-weary daughter of the captain of a coal barge, survive? Set in 1910, the timeless question of, "How does love make us grow?" is pondered. This American classic, Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill, is a play in four acts and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.

Jason Slater is a very average twenty-first-century English teacher from Cheadle Hulme, but somehow wakes up after a few drinks in nineteenth-century Macclesfield. Apparently, he's now Tarquin, third son of Lord Belport, with a faithful valet, a suspicious brother, a spurned ex-girlfriend (who's now going out with his brother)—and no obvious way he'll ever get back home again. From toasted sandwich makers and the perfect beer, to root canals and royal visits, can Jason—Tarquin, that is—change the course of history and make 1834 his playground?

When disgraced former cop Stefan Kopriva is asked by an old high school classmate to find a runaway 16-year-old girl, he reluctantly accepts. Driven by guilt over a terrible mistake that drove him from the force more than ten years earlier, Kopriva battles old injuries, old demons and long ago memories as he unravels the mystery of the missing Kris Sinderling...and seeks his own redemption.

When adventurer Maxwell Barnes and his team uncover clues about a lost gold mine in Mexico's Sonoran desert, they think they've struck fortune's motherlode. But after a treacherous tumble down a rocky hillside, they discover something far more valuable buried beneath: something with unimaginable power.

Columnist, critic and award-winning author Craig Brown is well known for his Private Eye parodies lampooning politicians and celebrities. He has written for numerous newspapers, both under his own name and as his alter egos Wallace Arnold and Bel Littlejohn. Collected here are Brown's four fantastic radio series, plus two bonus programmes in which he discusses his life and work.