Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

In the remote town of Firham-By-Sea, two holidaymakers are curious about the derelict Corner House and its mysterious owners. Upon investigation, they unveil the grim story of Mr and Mrs Labson.

‘The Bath-Chair’ tells the story of the Faraday siblings. Edmund is a shrewd businessman, priding himself on his impeccable health. His spinster sister, Alice, lives with him performing all domestic duties and despises him. When Edmund starts seeing a lame figure who looks startlingly like himself and his own health starts mysteriously declining, Alice revels in plotting his downfall.

Hester Ward is blessed with youth, health, beauty, a husband and two adorable children, but she is being tormented by a face in her dreams. It is hoped that a holiday by the coast will relieve her, but the face eventually manifests itself.

Set in the remote Yorkshire Valleys, the narrator in this story returns to the holiday home of his childhood. He has inherited the house from his uncle and has come to oversee the renovations with a friend. However, it soon becomes apparent the house is haunted by a ghost with an awful secret.

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.

Concerned for their recently widowed friend Harry, Vincent and Tom join him in Egypt for a boat trip along the Nile. Whilst the widower seems determined to forget his late wife, he recreates their honeymoon voyage, and their evening games of cards soon attract an unsettling presence.

An early exploration of electronic voice phenomena, ‘Billy Comes Through’ sees a widowed writer recall the curious phenomena that her and her husband experienced over the years with their wireless radio, during a power cut.

It’s Christmas in the Chandler household, and as the party gather around the fire, their host Everard recalls a ghostly tale from the previous Christmas in the misty forests of Scotland. 

One night less than two weeks before Christmas, a single mother is violently assaulted. It’s a brutal crime at the time of year when there should be goodwill to all. When DI Barton begins his investigation, he’s surprised to find the victim is a woman with nothing to hide and no reason for anyone to hurt her. A few days later, the mother of the woman attacked rings the police station. Her granddaughter has drawn a shocking picture. It seems she was looking out of the window when her mother was attacked.

The World War II codebreaking station at Bletchley is well known and its activities documented in detail. Its decryption capabilities were vital to the war effort, significantly aiding the Allied victory. But where did the messages being deciphered come from in the first place? This is the extraordinary untold story of the Y service, a secret even more closely guarded than Bletchley Park. 'Y service' was the code for the chain of wireless intercept stations around Britain and all over the world.

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.

Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester, is enraged when his hawk is killed by an arrow in the Forest of Delamere. When two poachers are caught, he orders their execution, yet neither of them fired the arrow. As Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret come to Cheshire to settle a series of disputes between Church and State, they are guests of the earl. But when they explore the castle and discover that the Prince of Gwynedd is being held there as a hostage, a number of questions arise. 

Living under new identities in rural France, trained killer Isabella Rose and her former handler Michael Pope are trying to lay low. Tired of hiding, all Isabella wants is the chance to live an ordinary life. But Isabella is an extraordinary young woman and the people pursuing her will never, ever, give up. Her unique abilities have attracted the attention of the Academy of Military Science in Beijing. And it’s not only Isabella who needs to stay in the shadows. 

"Carnivorine" follows the tale of Ellis Graham, who has been asked to find his friend’s lost son, Julius. Ellis heads to Europe in his search, only to find Julius on the brink of a remarkable discovery about carnivorous plants.

It is the juiciest piece of gossip the citizens of Norwich have heard for a long time. The ruthless Richard de Fontenel is himself the victim of robbery. In addition to two priceless golden elephants that he was using to lure the beautiful lady Adelaide into marriage, his steward Hermer is also missing. Onto the scene arrive soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret who are meant to adjudicate on a land dispute, but they also become involved in the hunt for the thief. But is Hermer the steward really missing or has something altogether more sinister happened?

It all began with sheep-stealing. A hateful act among the shepherds of the fells, and yet not a matter of life and death. Then came arson and with the leaping of the flames, death and disorder reached the peaceful moors. Holidaying with his friends the Hoggetts in High Gimmerdale while on a trip to find some farmland for his retirement, Robert Macdonald agrees to help in investigating the identity of the sheep-stealers, before being dragged into a case requiring his full experience as Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard.

When fire destroys their London theatre, Lord Westfield’s players must seek out humbler venues in the countryside. But company manager Nicholas Bracewell is distracted by a shocking tragedy: a mysterious messenger from his native Devon is murdered by poison. Though the messenger is silenced, Nicholas understands what he must do: return to his birthplace and reconcile some unfinished business of the past.

When Nicholas Bracewell finds himself once again in the parlour of his lost love, Anne Hendrik, he was not expecting her entreaties to embroil him in the murder of a beloved choir master. Between tales of cruelty, forgotten maps of London and a butcher determined to rescue his son, it is yet another mystery for the book keeper to untangle. But will his quest endanger Lord Westfield’s Men?

After a calamitous performance and the death of one of their own, Lord Westfield’s Men are more than despondent. So when the mysterious Simon Chaloner follows Nicholas Bracewell home with an offer of a new play, anonymously penned, his offer seems too good to refuse. It is a story of a simple death used to conceal a greater treachery, perhaps even treason. But they could never have known how dangerous one play could be. Or how telling the tale of a murdered mathematician might put them all in jeopardy.

In the tenth installment of this dramatic Elizabethan series, Westfield’s Men are flying high after a celebrated performance of The Insatiate Duke at the Queen’s Head. However, victory is bittersweet as the company is soon faced with dissolution and the loss of their theatre; were it not for one of the company’s rising stars. After acquiring a new benefactor, the company plan to build their own theatre. However, before they have the chance to find out who this guardian angel is, one of the group is found brutally murdered.