Showing results by narrator "Finlay Robertson" in All Categories

Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch - formerly known as Howlin' Hellb---h - of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn't a suspect?

A heartwarming tale of office life, homicide and biscuits, which was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award 2017. Jonathon Fairfax, the world’s most socially awkward hero, works for a giant corporation where he specialises in muttering ‘um’ and tripping over bins. When he accidentally discovers a colossal corporate conspiracy, it soon becomes clear that someone will do anything to keep it a secret - including murder. 

It’s all Tinkler’s fault. If it weren’t for his obsession with the 1970s band Black Dog, none of this would have happened. The members of Black Dog performed an infamous publicity stunt on Halig Island: they burned a million dollars on an enormous bonfire. But the stunt backfired, splitting the band for good and increasing the value of their final, recalled album tenfold.

Rob Driscoll, former sergeant with 42 Commando, Royal Marines, served tours in Iraq, Kuwait and Kosovo. A born leader of fighting men, with the medals to prove it, he also endured three tours in Afghanistan. The third of those will go down in history as one of the UK military's darkest hours, for it marked the first time a British serviceman has been tried for a murder on the battlefield since the Second World War.

After narrowly escaping the fall of Rossarb, Princess Catherine leads a rag-tag group of survivors into the barren wasteland of the Northern Plateau. With the Brigantine army snapping at their heels, Edyon and Ambrose become separated from the group, while demon hunter Tash leads Catherine and March to an unlikely refuge - the hidden tunnels of the demon world itself.

Artist, lover, wife, mother: can one woman be them all? Born in 1924, Jennet Mallow grew up with a disillusioned mother and a father haunted by memories of war. But Jennet has a talent - and a passion - for art. When she meets the handsome painter David Heaton, they begin a tempestuous affair which takes them from the dank terraces of London to a bohemian artistic community in St Ives. But as Jennet's career flourishes, her relationship with David suffers - with potentially tragic consequences.... 

In The Spirit Level Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett put inequality at the centre of public debate by showing conclusively that less equal societies fare worse than more equal ones across everything from education to life expectancy. The Inner Level now explains how inequality affects us individually, how it alters how we think, feel and behave. It sets out the overwhelming evidence that material inequalities have powerful psychological effects: when the gap between rich and poor increases, so does the tendency to define and value ourselves and others in terms of superiority and inferiority.

Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops in a war zone. On all sides of this conflict, people are about to be caught up in the violence.... We see the characters not as they see themselves but as all the objects surrounding them do: shoes and boots, a helmet, a drone, a bag of fertilizer, a medal, a beer glass, dog tags, an exploding IED and the medical implements that are subsequently employed.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Noonday by Pat Barker, read by Juliet Stevenson, Stephen Boxer, John Sackville, Anne Reid & Finlay Robertson. London, the Blitz, autumn 1940. Ambulance drivers Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville ferry injured survivors from bomb sites to hospitals while Elinor's husband, Paul, works as an air-raid warden.

When one of his cats accidentally discovers a rare Victory Disc, the Vinyl Detective and his girlfriend, Nevada, are whisked into the world of big band swing music and a mystery that began during the Second World War. Hired to track down the rest of the highly sought-after recordings of the Flare Path Orchestra, our hero will discover that the battles of the last world war aren’t over yet. And if all this sounds simple, it’s only because we haven’t mentioned drive-by shootings, murderous neo-Nazis, or that slight case of being buried alive....

Tess and Gus are meant to be. They just haven't met properly yet. And perhaps they never will.... 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life' is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can't get it out of her head, even though she's in Florence for a final idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever - but not in the way she expects. Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically.

How do you solve your own murder? Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen. But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn't really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there, and Alex is not the only one in danger. As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery.

When Jonathon Fairfax accidentally helps a murderer bump off Sarah Morecambe, the secretary of a senior politician, he sets off a chain of events that astonishes him. Jonathon is wrong-footed by even the most everyday things, so he's particularly startled to find himself caught up in a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of government. Teaming up with a suave private investigator, a glamorous granny and the probable love of his life, Jonathon must confront his greatest fears - including talking to girls and balaclava-clad killers - and answer some very difficult questions.   

What happens to a man who has his ear pressed to the lives of others but not much life of his own? When Stephen Donaldson joins The Institute, he anticipates excitement, romance and new status. This becomes a reality when he is assigned a new case: Phoenix, in which he becomes mesmerized by the voice of the target's wife. Dangerously in love and very lonely, Stephen sets himself up for a vertiginous fall that will forever change his life.

Towards the end of the Second World War a British artist called Kenneth Brill is arrested for painting near the village of Heathrow. Under interrogation a picture emerges as Brill tells the story of his life. Vanishing sees the world through the eyes of one of the forgotten geniuses of British Art, a man whose artistic vision is so piercing he has trouble seeing what is right in front of him.

When Henry Scowcroft's partner, Zarah, was diagnosed with stage-four bladder cancer in 2016, their world fell apart. An award-winning science writer for Cancer Research UK, Henry had spent 14 years at the coal-face of cancer research, but now the disease had infiltrated his personal life too. Henry uses this unique perspective to tell the story of Zarah's illness, how he tried in vain to use everything he'd learnt in his professional career to try to save her and in doing so, how he realised that even a career writing about cancer daily isn't enough preparation for what comes next.

When Robert (or Kidder, as his best friend calls him) decides to impress at a job interview by making up a son, he discovers that maintaining the lie is far harder than he thought - so he invents a story that 'Brodie' has been kidnapped. After all, it's not like they're going to find the fake boy. But a few weeks later, Kidder receives a call to collect his nonexistent son from the police station, a boy who looks exactly like the picture he photoshopped....

In this witty and mischievous book, philosopher Peter Cave dissects the most controversial disputes today and uses philosophical argument to reveal that many issues are less straightforward than we'd like to believe. Leaving no sacred cow standing, Cave uses ingenious stories and examples to challenge our most strongly held assumptions. Is democracy inherently a good thing? What is the basis of so-called human rights? Is discrimination always bad? Are we morally obliged to accept refugees?

As war spreads like wildfire, the Smoke Thieves face their greatest challenges yet. With her father tightening his grip on the Northern Plateau, Catherine sends her loyal bodyguard Ambrose into the dragon's den on a desperate mission to disrupt the supply of smoke. In Calidor, Edyon and March face a future divided while, trapped in the demon world, Tash wrestles with the price of her past. But as the battle for the human kingdoms reaches its climax, the demon realm reveals a final, terrible secret.

When a mint copy of the final album by Valerian - England's great lost rock band of the 1960s - surfaces, all hell breaks loose. Finding this record triggers a chain of events culminating in our hero learning the true fate of the singer of Valerian, who died under equivocal circumstances just after...or was it just before the abduction of her two-year-old son? Along the way the Vinyl Detective finds out what happened to the missing child, and it wasn't what anyone expected - or wanted - to hear.