Showing results by narrator "John Telfer" in All Categories

In these five tales, Sherlock Holmes is shown at the height of his powers: he co-operates with a young Winston Churchill in the famed Siege of Sydney Street, helps defeat a plan for a German invasion outlined in the Zimmerman Telegram, establishes a link between two missing lighthouse keepers and the royal treasures of King John, contends with a supernatural curse places upon an eccentric aristocrat, and discovers a lost epic of Lord Byron.

Ancient Egypt wasn't all pyramids, sphinxes and gold sarcophagi. For your average Egyptian, life was tough, and work was hard, conducted under the burning gaze of the sun god Ra. During the course of a day in the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor), Egypt's religious capital, we meet 24 Egyptians from all strata of society - from the king to the bread-maker, the priestess to the fisherman, the soldier to the midwife - and get to know what the real Egypt was like by spending an hour in their company.

Athens, 416 BC. A tenuous peace holds. The city-state's political and military might are feared throughout the ancient world; it pushes the boundaries of social, literary and philosophical experimentation in an era when it has a greater concentration of geniuses per capita than at any other time in human history. Yet even geniuses go to the bathroom, argue with their spouse and enjoy a drink with friends. Few of the city's other inhabitants enjoy the benefits of such a civilised society, though - as multicultural and progressive as Athens can be, many are barred from citizenship.

Rodrigo Borgia picks up his papal skirts and walks out on to the public balcony.Sixty-one years old. How many years does he have in front of him? By his age, four of the five popes he had served were already rotting in their tombs. Sixty-one. Three sons, a ripening daughter and a sublime young mistress, ready to drop more fruit.Borgia blood. Thick with ambition and determination. How long does he need? Give him another ten - no, fifteen - summers and he will have the bull crest emblazoned over half of Italy.

The Saint is back - 50 audiobooks are now available starring the debonair classic crime hero. Simon Templar is the Saint - daring, dazzling, and just a little disreputable. On the side of the law, but standing outside it, he dispenses his own brand of justice one criminal at a time. In three more classic tales, the Saint continues to push his luck in his own inimitable style.

On a sultry afternoon in July, a man stumbles through thick foliage, making for the coast. He wears prisoner's garb and guards are hot on his heels. Happening upon a bather's clothes, the escapee leaves the scene looking the part of the average beachcomber. But it can be hard to stay hidden forever. When a blackmailer intrudes upon the promising life of the man who now calls himself Mr. Pottermack, a violent fate befalls him, and the stakes are set: Pottermack must avoid discovery at all costs to escape the hangman's noose.

When Belize is invaded by a powerful neighbour, it's Britain that must spring to the defence of this old outpost of empire. But intervening in distant Central America will test the limits of the former colonial power. And in the end the outcome will turn on the skill, boldness and heart-bursting bravery of a handful of British forces already in country....

There's only one book that ever truly got inside the Beatles, and this is it. During 1967 and 1968, Hunter Davies spent 18 months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers as they defined a generation and rewrote popular music. As their only-ever authorised biographer, he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but to friends, family, and colleagues. He collected a wealth of intimate and revealing material that makes this the classic Beatles book - the one all other biographers look to.

It is a hot summer's day in the tourist village of Avebury. A man sits outside the Red Lion pub, waiting. He sees a woman with three young children, two of them running ahead while their sister dawdles behind. A child's voice catches on the breeze. For want of anything more interesting to do, the man watches. He sees nothing sinister or threatening. Even when another figure enters his field of vision, he does not react. The figure is ordinary - male, short-haired, stockily built. But he is moving fast, at a loping run. And then it happens.

1796. John Pearce is stuck with a difficult mission, a crew of Quota Men forced to enlist in the Royal Navy, four new midshipmen as well as Samuel Oliphant, companion cum spy, whom he finds a constant irritant. In his favour, he commands HMS Hazard, a speedy warship, a pair of competent officers and, of course, his trusty friends the Pelicans. Their mission is to head for the Mediterranean Fleet and warn Admiral Sir John Jervis of impending danger he will face, fighting a combined French/Spanish fleet.

Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.

Geoffrey Staddon turned his back on the best things in his life. He turned his back on the beautiful house Clouds Frome, his finest achievement as an architect. He turned his back on the woman he loved, Consuela Caswell, and who loved him in return. Twelve years later, amidst the tatters of his career and marriage, he is forced to contemplate the remorse and shame of his betrayal. But when he reads that Consuela has been charged with murder, he knows instinctively that she cannot be guilty....

As a powerful insurgent army closes on Liberia's capital, London is forced to act, and HMS Beaufort is dispatched to West Africa to pull British nationals from the teeth of encroaching danger. But when the volatile situation ashore unravels, the frigate's crew must draw deep on reserves of skill, ingenuity and sheer bloody-mindedness to save it. And with time running out, Beaufort's Captain makes the decision to take his ship upriver....

One fateful summer evening, businessman Robin Timariot meets a strikingly beautiful woman while out walking. They exchange only a few words, but those words prove to be unforgettable. A few days later, the newspapers are full of the rape and murder of Lady Louise Paxton - and to his horror, Timariot realises that this was the woman he met just hours before her death. A man is swiftly charged and convicted of the crime, but a series of bizarre events begin to convince Timariot that all is not what it seems.

Titus Quayle was the best MI6 ever had - an operative of exceptional and lethal ability. But they burned him, abandoned him and left him for dead. Holly Morton is the daughter of the spymaster who first recognised Quayle’s potential and the key to unlocking a global conspiracy her father died trying to bring down. To uncover the truth, Quayle must keep her safe from the threat of a powerful enemy in a globetrotting race against time. Nowhere is safe.

London, 1920. There's a killer on the streets of Camden Town, and no woman is safe. When a woman's body is dragged from the Regent's Canal on a freezing January night, eminent forensic pathologist and criminal sleuth Dr Bernard Spilsbury immediately detects foul play. And when a second woman washes up dead under similar circumstances, police realise they are looking for a dangerous predator. Is someone luring lonely spinsters to their deaths through a newspaper Lonely Hearts column? And can they be stopped before they strike again?

When a group of missionaries get caught up in bloody African civil war, London is forced to act. For the men of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, it should be a quick in and out. A nice clean operation. But what awaits them will test them like never before. And, facing overwhelming odds, this time the skill and raw courage of these legendary fighting men may not be enough....

Throughout her career prize-winning novelist Jane Gardam has been writing glorious short stories, each one hallmarked with all the originality, poignancy, wry comedy, and narrative brilliance of her longer fiction. Passion and longing, metamorphosis and enchantment are Gardam's themes, and like a magician she plucks them from the quietest of corners: from Wimbledon gardens and cold churches, from London buses and industrial backstreets.

Estranged from his family for most of his adult life, Chris Napier is persuaded to return home for his niece's wedding. At the reception, he is shocked to recognise a dishevelled intruder as his childhood friend Nicky Lanyon, whose presence is a chilling reminder of a murder and subsequent trial that Chris has tried hard to forget. When Nicky hangs himself, Chris is compelled to revisit the tragic events of 34 years ago and the apparent justice that was served.

In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Detective Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the detective's worst suspicions are realised when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit.