Showing results by narrator "Michael Tudor Barnes" in All Categories

The body of a young woman is found in the Bradfield canal: a new case for DCI Thackeray. But with the entire town focused on the local club's match against Chelsea, no one seems able to identify the girl, let alone give any clue as to how she died. Meanwhile, Thackeray's girlfriend, reporter Laura Ackroyd, stumbles upon evidence of shady dealings by the club's directors and unsavoury goings-on at post-game parties. But in her pursuit of answers, Laura may be putting Thackeray's job and her life in danger.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Sharif is finding it difficult to keep his balance on the tightrope he walks between his family's traditional Muslim beliefs and his job as a policeman. When his young, newly married cousin Faria Aziz disappears, Mohammed tries to trace her to ease the worry of his family. But as this unofficial inquiry soon becomes a police matter, DCI Thackeray must tread carefully in his investigations.

London, 1944: an atmosphere of unease pervades the city as the invasion of Europe looms. Meanwhile, John Fairfax, an American paratrooper, and Robbie Cochran, a New Zealand pilot in the RAF, are swept along by the urgency of the times as they meet and fall in love with two rather unexpected girls. Across the Channel, Walter Raus, an officer in the Waffen SS, prepares for the coming storm while his wife Inge, a devoted nurse, faces death at every turn thanks to the relentless Allied bombing.

In 1972, 18-year-old Frederick Boyle arrives by ship in the heat Montevideo, Uruguay. Equipped with a phrase book and a few pesos, he quickly finds himself renamed Ramon Bolio. Uruguay is a country on the brink of dictatorship, and Ramon finds the world around him is changing rapidly. Then one night he discovers the tango and begins the long process of becoming a Milonguero – a master of the dance.

Apothecary John Rawlings is intrigued when a letter arrives asking him to investigate an impostor claiming to be the long-lost step-son of a wealthy Bristol merchant in possession of his dead wife's diamond inheritance. John Rawlings' father, Sir Gabriel Kent joins him on the trip to take the healing waters at Hotwell where they socialize with the crème of Bristol society. But Rawlings is compelled to try and solve the mystery and so he must trawl through the underbelly of 18th-century society.

Richard and Robin Mariner are amongst a select group of honoured guests at a reception in the Presidential Palace, in the recently refurbished capital of a powerful West Africa nation. They have been instrumental in helping the president take charge, which he is still fighting to drag into the 21st century.

Apothecary John Rawlings has travelled to Devon to be by the side of his mistress, Elizabeth di Lorenzi, who is due to give birth to their child. Leaving his shop and his new carbonated water business in good hands, John is presented with a surprise on his arrival at Sidmouth House. While Elizabeth is recuperating, he learns that Lady Sidmouth's daughter, Miranda, is to marry the elderly Earl of St. Austell, who is 54 years her senior and has a cruel reputation.

1938: As Hitler sets his sights on the Sudetenland, not everyone in Britain is willing to appease him. Convinced that the fürher’s land hunger is insatiable, the head of the SIS recruits Cal Jardine to help him prove that Czechoslovakia is threatened with invasion. Before heading undercover to Prague, however, Jardine must first extricate himself from France, where his attempts to smuggle guns to Spain have been held up by a group of fanatical fascists. Finally arriving in Czechoslovakia, working undercover for the SIS proves no less dangerous.

On May 7th, 1915 a passenger ship crossing the Atlantic sank with the loss of 1200 lives. On board were some world-famous figures, including multimillionaire Alfred Vanderbilt. But this wasn’t the Titanic and there was no iceberg. The liner was the Lusitania and it was torpedoed by a German U-boat.Wilful Murder is the hugely compelling story of the sinking of the Lusitania. The first book to look at the events in their full historical context, it is also the first to place the human dimension at its heart.

One of the best-loved composers of all time, Dvorák rose from rural origins to become not only a great but an influential composer. The first composer to put his native Bohemia on the musical map of the world, he was invited to do the same for America. One result was the famous "New World" Symphony, which made him a household name across the globe. Writing music of irresistible color, lilt and peasant vitality, he was also a melodist-in-a-million. This portrait-in-sound follows a lovable and in many ways a very simple, man from hay cart to imperial palace, from tragic loss to heart-warming joy, to pigeon-raising and world celebrity.

It is 1588, and King Philip of Spain has assembled a great fleet and army to crush the English and end Queen Elizabeth's reign.

One man who has inside knowledge of this event is the young Henry Gresham. His good looks, youth, and wealth are the envy of some at court, so his position as spy for Walsingham further endangers his life.

Robert Cecil, chief secretary to the king, summons the gentleman spy, Henry Gresham, to his death bed to give his arch enemy one final, deadly case. An unknown Cambridge bookseller has obtained devastating correspondence between King James I and Robert Carr, and Gresham is the one man who can return the letters, saving the monarch from a potentially scandalous downfall.

In the dark days of King James I, a man must know his enemies to survive. To Henry Gresham, gentleman, scholar, courtier, and spy, William Shadwell is invaluable. A thief, informer, double-dealer, and pimp, he may not be the most moral of men, but he is one of Gresham's best sources. When Shadwell is murdered, Gresham's enquiries uncover a plot so audacious it is scarcely believable.

Sam Grant is tasked with the job of tracing the vendor of a painting that had come up for sale at a London auction room. Produced by a German Jewish artist who had perished in a Nazi concentration camp, the painting had been stolen from a schloss in Lower Saxony in World War Two. Then it had apparently vanished. Now it has surfaced 50 years later. So who had possessed it in those years? Grant has to find the answer for Gerda Hoffman, an attractive blonde. But the case turns out to be more dangerous and life-threatening than he could have anticipated…

Sometimes you come across a lofty railway viaduct marooned in the middle of a remote country landscape. Or a crumbling platform from some once-bustling junction buried under the buddleia. If you are lucky you might be able to follow some rusting tracks or explore an old tunnel leading to...well, who knows where? Listen hard. Is that the wind in the undergrowth? Or the spectre of a train from a golden era of the past panting up the embankment?

When the mutilated body of midwife and healer Agatha Kyteler is discovered in a hedge one frozen wintry morning, it seems at first that a lack of clues will render the crime impossible to solve. Then a frightened local youth inexplicably flees his village, and a hue and cry is raised in his wake. Sir Baldwin Furnshill, once a Knight Templar, has doubts about the boy's guilt. He enlists his friend Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford Castle, in the hunt for a murderer.

This heart-warming account of veterinary life traces Ivor Smith's early days as a student at university through setting up his own practice in the Cotswolds, recounting a memorable 40 years in the profession. Following in the Herriot tradition of veterinary humour, Ivor's memories of life as a vet in a very mixed practice include hilarious incidents, colourful local characters and engaging patients.

Blood, Iron, and Gold reveals the huge impact of the railways as they spread rapidly across the world, linking cities that had hitherto been isolated, stimulating both economic growth and social change on an unprecedented scale. From Panama to the Punjab, Christian Wolmar describes the vision and determination of the pioneers who developed railways that would one day span continents, as well as the labour of the navvies who built this global network.

Crete, May 1941. In the face of a German invasion, Sergeant Jack Tanner is embroiled in a deadly game of survival that will test his resolve more than ever before. Not only has he fallen out with his commander but he has mortally offended Alopex, a powerful local chieftain. As if that wasn't enough, Tanner and the rest of his battalion are caught in vicious close-quarter fighting against crack German paratroopers.

Were things really better in the good old days? Gilda O'Neill's powerful exploration of the teeming underbelly that was to be found in the fog-bound streets, rat-infested slums, common lodging houses, boozers, penny gaffs, and brothels in the heart of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen brings to life the real working-class London of Victoria's reign.