Showing results by narrator "David Monteath" in All Categories

It is 1547 and, after five years imprisonment and exile far from his homeland, Francis Crawford of Lymond - scholar, soldier, rebel, nobleman, outlaw - has at last come back to Edinburgh. But for many in an already divided Scotland, where conspiracies swarm around the infant Queen Mary like clouds of midges, he is not welcome. Lymond is wanted for treason and murder, and he is accompanied by a band of killers and ruffians who will only bring further violence and strife. Is he back to foment rebellion? Does he seek revenge on those who banished him? Or has he returned to clear his name? 

William Watt wants answers about his family's murder. Peter Manuel has them. But Peter Manuel is a liar. William Watt is an ordinary businessman, a fool, a social climber. Peter Manuel is a famous liar, a rapist, a criminal. He claims he can get hold of the gun used to murder Watt's family. One December night in 1957, Watt meets Manuel in a Glasgow bar to find out what he knows.

Sixteen-year-old Philippa Somerville has left Constantinople intact. Returning to England as wife in name only to Francis Crawford of Lymond, she wastes no time in seeking the truth about her new spouse, even as she finds herself navigating the paranoid court of Queen Mary. Lymond, meanwhile, arrives in Moscow to assist its young Tsar Ivan to create a fledgling Russian army. But when he is tasked to visit London as Ivan's envoy, his path is bound to cross that of the wife he has sworn to divorce.

When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joins the local fishing class she wastes no time in ruffling feathers of those around her. Among the victims of her sharp tongue is Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth, yet not even Hamish thinks someone would seriously want to silence Lady Jane’s shrill voice permanently – until her strangled body is fished out of the river.

When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls. Online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the accusations of sexual abuse and murder that were levelled at Crystal before he died. But as Scott begins to ask questions and rake over old graves, some startling inconsistencies emerge.

Film star Amelie Hart is the darling of the silver screen, appearing on the front pages of every newspaper. But at the peak of her fame she throws it all away for a regular guy with an ordinary job. The gossip columns are aghast. Any hope the furore will die down is crushed when Amelie’s boyfriend, Dave, is arrested on charges of child sexual abuse. Dave strongly asserts his innocence, and when Amelie refuses to denounce him, the press witch hunt quickly turns into physical violence and she has to flee the country. 

It's December 1967, and the town of Kinloch is cut off by heavy snow. With all roads closed, the only way to feed and water the townsfolk is for the fishing fleet to sail to Girvan for much needed supplies. But the skipper of the Girl Maggie, Sandy Hoynes, has a problem. First Mate Hamish has, to everyone's astonishment, been chosen as Young Fisherman of the Year by a Glasgow newspaper. Marooned in the town and with one eye on a scoop, their reporter decides to join the fishing crew on their mercy mission.

Teenager Alison Doig disappeared from Kinloch more than 30 years ago under mysterious circumstances. Her reclusive family still lives in a remote part of the Kintyre peninsula, amidst rumours of wrecking, smuggling and barbaric cruelty. Now rich American hotelier Alice Wenger has arrived in town, determined to punish those who made her suffer in the past. But someone has vowed to keep hidden sins concealed forever. Daley’s team must race against time to expose long-held secrets and shameful lies before there are any more victims.

DI Jack Knox is called in to investigate a high-profile case. A local distiller’s daughter has gone missing, and when he receives a ransom note, his fears that it is a kidnapping are confirmed. Knox decides to take a serious risk to capture the abductors, but the stakes could not be higher. The father is wealthy and well-connected. If Knox’s gamble goes wrong, he’ll have hell to pay. Meanwhile in the prequel story, 'Labyrinth', the body of an attractive young woman is found in woodland on Edinburgh’s iconic Calton Hill.

Detective Jack Knox is faced with a troubling case when a woman’s body is found on a beach near Edinburgh. Police match her to missing persons, because her personal effects have been swept out to sea. When she is finally identified, the victim’s last known movements are investigated. She was courted by a man who proves elusive, having evaded surveillance cameras. He has covered his tracks well. Was this her killer? 

From ambition to success, this is the complete story of Del Amitri’s rise from initial formation through six albums that took them to global recognition. From early John Peel sessions, to touring with Morrissey, to appearing on Letterman and cracking the US, the book follows every up and down of the band s incredible career, as well as providing unique and original insights into their personalities and music.   

Twenty-three years ago, Christina Tolmie vanished without trace from northern France, leaving her young daughters Kate and Flora orphaned and alone. Now Flora is also missing. In desperation, Kate searches her Edinburgh house and finds a piece of note paper with just one name: Cal McGill. 

Lighthouses are striking totems of our relationship to the sea. For many, they encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose is much more utilitarian than that. Still today we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, a ring of 19 towers built between 1811-1905, so called because they were constructed on desolate rock formations in the middle of the sea, and made of granite to withstand the power of its waves.   

Thirty-year-old Dee and her husband Luke are blissfully happy. Every day she makes her loyal parents incredibly proud. Jen has been her best friend since their days of teenage crushes, bad '90s makeup and huge hair. They are just like any other group of family and friends - living life and getting by. Until one day everything changes. Dee is gone, killed by a reckless driver, leaving the people she loved to deal with their grief in different ways. A marriage is rocked as a parent seeks justice. A husband struggles to accept the loss of his wife. 

In a remote corner of Scotland, something momentous is underway. When Effie's father receives a government notice to quit Kirk Farm, the lives of the Ross family and those of the whole community are utterly disrupted. But for Effie - irrepressible, beautiful, vital - wartime changes bring her close to Toni, an Italian prisoner of war sent to work on the farm. Before long, the young couple are planning a future together when the war is finally over. It’s a future that's under threat from the start. For there are those among them who cannot quite be trusted. 

The fourth book in the highly acclaimed Alexander Seaton series. 1635: Europe is in the grip of the brutal territorial and religious struggle of the Thirty Years' War. Fear stalks the town of Aberdeen as a ship recruiting for the wars lies at anchor in the river mouth.

Part Bildungsroman, part hymn to the city of Glasgow, Jericho Sleep Alone is without a doubt the finest book written about the Scots-Jewish experience. From Bar Mitzvah to an unfulfilling teaching career, Jericho Eli Broock finds himself a perennial outsider and unlucky in love, neither his on-off affair with the flighty Ninna or his financially prudent dalliance with the homely Camilla coming to fruition. Will the sometimes oppressive aid of the Jewish community make all well in his world?

When Professor Francombe and her team of archaeologists find the remains of three women on a remote Kintyre hillside - a site rumoured to have been the base of Viking warlord Somerled - their delight soon turns to horror when they realise the women tragically met their end little more than two decades ago. It soon becomes clear that these are the three missing victims of the ‘Midweek Murderer’, a serial killer who was at work in Glasgow in the early 1990s.  DCI Jim Daley now has the chance to put things right.

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, the soldier-poet who fought so magnificently and so fruitlessly for his King, Charles I. A tale of seduction and witchcraft and a promise made to Charles I to "raise Scotland for the King." Margaret Irwin's novels of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries have been popular for decades. The author's particular hall-mark is the way she blends exciting adventure, romance and penetrating character-study with scrupulous historical accuracy.

Married couple Jack and Ali Gardiner move to a self-sufficient spiritual commune in the English Fens, desperate for fresh start. The local village is known for the witches who once resided there, and Rosalind House, where the commune has been established, is a former psychiatric home, with a disturbing history. When Jack and Ali arrive, a chain of unexpected and unexplained events is set off, and it becomes clear that they are not all that they seem. As the residents become twitchy, and the villagers suspicious, events from the past come back to haunt them, and someone is seeking retribution....