Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

Private Investigator Makana has a new client: the powerful art dealer Aram Kasabian. Kasabian wants him to track down a priceless painting that went missing from Baghdad during the US invasion. The art world is a far cry from the Cairo that Makana knows, but he discovers that this side of the city has its own dark underbelly. Before long he finds himself caught between dangerous enemies on a trail that leads him into the darkness of war and which threatens to send the new life he has built for himself up in flames.

Harriet and Matthew Rowsley, the housekeeper and estate manager of Thorncroft House in Shropshire, have to cut short their successful trip to Oxford when they receive a telegraph: a decapitated and mutilated body has been found on the estate. While trying to help the strangely slow police investigation, the couple face an unsettling threat to their livelihood: after years of searching, a legitimate heir of Thorncroft estate has been found!

A severed head washes up on the banks of the Nile. The police turn a blind eye. It is just another victim in a series of ritual killings of refugees. Distracted from his hunt for a missing boy, Makana feels the pull of his Sudanese past and is impelled to seek justice for the murdered emigrants.

A fork of lightning and a crash of thunder herald the completion of a heinous crime. In woodland belonging to the eccentric Lord Wychbold, a body has been crucified on a tree. On Easter Day, the Reverend Tobias Campion returns from morning service at St Luke's and discovers the corpse, already beginning to putrefy. A crown of thorns frames his face, bludgeoned beyond recognition, and a loincloth preserves what is left of his modesty.

A wolf howls through the forests of Transylvania, the murky graveyards of H.P. Lovecraft, the mythic marshes of Count Stenbock and the ghostly vaults of English cathedrals in these timeless stories read by award-winning actors from The Story Circle company.

In 2016, six students and a dog on a barge trip entered Standedge Tunnel, the longest canal tunnel in England. Six students went in, and two and a half hours later, the boat reappeared on the other side with only one of the students, unconscious, and the dog. The case of the Standedge Six was largely kept from the national media. The police investigation concluded that the only remaining student, Matthew, killed his friends, hid the bodies on the boat and returned later to move them to an undisclosed location. Matthew is in prison...but he maintains he is innocent.

Disgraced former Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago and his larger-than-life employer the journalist William Philpott have escaped America - and Philpott's near imprisonment for libel - by the skin of their teeth. They return to Laurence's home town of Helston in Cornwall in the hope of rest and recuperation, but instead find themselves in the middle of a tumultuous election. Only two men may vote in this rotten borough, and when one of them dies in suspicious circumstances, Laurence is ordered to investigate on behalf of the town's political patron, his old master the Duke of Leeds.

A positive spin on the supernatural, ‘Pirates’ sees ageing industrialist Peter Graham return to his former family home in Cornwall after more than 40 years. The ghosts of the house represent happy memories of his childhood.

Crimes are rare in Singapore, but when there's one that has the police baffled, it is Inspector Zhang that they turn to. From locked-room mysteries to murders disguised as suicide, Inspector Zhang is able to draw on his experience as a detective along with tricks he has learned from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. See if you can solve the crimes before the Inspector - the clues are there!

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

Twilit and sinister, oozing with ague, bad airs, boggarts and other spirits: in the mind’s eye marshes, bogs and swamps are dangerous, crepuscular—and only partly of this world. For centuries, wetlands, have been the object of our distrust: we’ve drained away their demons, encroached upon and denuded them, ripping away not only their fragile beauty, botany and birdlife but also the carefully calibrated lives of those that have come to understand and thrive in them. In Swamp Songs, Tom Blass takes us on a journey through these strange lands and waterscapes.

It is deep midwinter. Six ambitious vice presidents of Labouchere Associates are gathered together at an isolated mountain lodge in New Hampshire’s White Mountains for a weekend of corporate mind games. By Monday, one of them will become a partner and earn at least a million a year. And one of them will be dead.

1096. The Pope has called for a crusade to free Jerusalem, and half the warriors of Europe have responded. Among them is the Norman, Count Bohemund, one-time enemy of Byzantium. In company with his warrior nephew, Tancred of Lecce, Bohemund must once more cross the Adriatic to the lands of the Byzantine Empire. His first task, pushing back the infidel Turks, calls for an uneasy alliance with old enemy Emperor Alexius. But can the Crusaders trust the wily Emperor?

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Whilst John and Olga Hitchman are at the Theatre Royal enjoying their usual box, they become the victims of a professional thief who has his eye on their Fabergé egg as an Easter gift for his partner. Known only as 'Macavity', the name given to him by the press, this thief thinks he’s untouchable. But that was before he had detective Peter Diamond on his tail.

Renowned Egyptologist Dr Elliott Elwood is slightly puzzled when he's invited to Torquay to take part in a bizarre bidding war for a well-known artefact collection. But, of course, he couldn't pass up the chance to view the 'Cleopatra Necklace' - an infamous piece from the collection, rumoured to be cursed. However, Elliott's weekend away with his fellow bidders, including the strangely familiar Maisie Norris - if that is her real name - ends up involving far more than afternoon tea and historical chit-chat.

The Victorian era saw orchids become one of the most expensive and collectable plants, and this short story follows orchid collector Wedderburn, who gets more than he bargained for with his latest floral specimen.

A dawn swim turns deadly in a brand-new short story starring DCI Vera Stanhope.... Two bored cell-mates play a game with chilling results.... A hen night in an isolated cottage brings new meaning to 'I will survive'.... Why not treat yourself to a slice of murderously moreish fiction, and join us in wishing the squad many deadly returns. With stories by Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Margaret Murphy, Chris Simms and Cath Staincliffe, as well as John Baker, Chaz Brenchley and Stuart Pawson.

Super Loud Sam is a smaller than the average boy with a louder than the average voice. Often people - his parents, teachers, random strangers - tell Sam to shush! But it’s impossible! When a sinister new teacher, Mrs Sandy Mann, starts at Sam’s school, he realises she wants to silence children and their creativity, energy and noisy zest for life - with a special sleep spell. Only Sam’s shouty voice can break through her spell and save his friends from her slumber.

With the death of Edward the Confessor, the crown of England is hanging in the balance. And in the north Harald Hardrada, the Norwegian Viking leader, is determined to take his chance of capturing the country. But newly-crowned King Harold Godwinson will not let that happen without a fight. Charismatic and the leader of a mighty army, he is determined to make Hadrada the last Viking in England. And so the bloodiest battle yet fought on English soil is about to begin. At stake is sovereignty, freedom, and honour.

Nic Cuaruana is 27, and he has served a prison sentence for killing someone when he was 17. Since his release, he has worked as a hit man-cum-cleaner-upper of various crime problems. An arms dealer called Pat employs Nic to find his missing teenage daughter Emma, and almost before he knows it Nic has fallen big-time into gangland London.