Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

The Man on the Mountaintop tells the story of Holy Man Joe, an ageing and unassuming man who lives in a hermitage on top of a mountain. During the summer months, thousands of hopefuls line the path leading to his door, seeking his wisdom. From bombastic, wealthy nobles intent on cheating their way to the top to drunkards who gradually build the physical and mental strength they need to quit their addiction, The Man on the Mountaintop is a rousing tale full of humour, wit and life lessons.

Terry Flynt is a struggling legal clerk desperately trying to get promoted when he is given the biggest opportunity of his career: to help defend a millionaire accused of murdering a woman in his hotel suite. The only problem is that the accused man, Vernon James, is not only someone he knows but someone he loathes. This case could potentially make Terry's career, but how can he defend a former friend who betrayed him?

The cryptocurrency scam was global. The victims were everywhere. But now, the men behind it are running out of places to hide. Milton never wanted to get involved. But when he sees the damage that the scheme has caused and the lives that have been ruined, he finds himself pulled into a deadly game.

The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor.

When a magical storm tears their ship to pieces, legendary assassin Locan A’Shadow and his companion, Cetrik, stagger ashore in a ruthless and broken land. The rulers of Paleir once commanded mighty sea dragons, forging an island of warring kingdoms into a proud and prosperous nation. Now, Paleir’s cities lie in ruins. No dragon has been seen there for centuries… Until now.

Isabella Rose, the Angel, is used to surprises, but being abducted is an unwelcome novelty. She's relying on Michael Pope, the head of the top-secret Group Fifteen, to get her back. When ISIS get involved, the situation becomes even bleaker. Isabella's abductors are in turn abducted, and she finds herself trapped in Raqqa, the capital of the self-styled caliphate.

Bjorn Thorsson joined the Special Air Service to forget the horrors of his childhood. He killed for Queen and country, and he was good at it. He quits the army and settles down, looking for a quieter life. When his beautiful sister, Gudrun, finds herself in trouble with the owner of a hedge fund, Bjorn promises to get her out of danger. But there’s another factor in play. Group 15, a clandestine government agency, has plans for the financier, and Bjorn is in their way. Bjorn must outwit the Group in the streets of London and in the Highlands of Scotland if he is to protect his sister and survive.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse. What will be the spark that lights the conflagration? Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood–that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

Henri Koskinen firmly believes in the power of common sense and order. That is until he moves in with Laura Helanto and her daughter. As Henri realises he has inadvertently become part of a group of local dads, a competing adventure park is seeking to expand their operations, not always sticking to the law in the process. Is it possible to combine the increasingly dangerous world of the adventure-park business with the unpredictability of life in a blended family? At first glance, the two appear to have only one thing in common: neither deals particularly well with a mounting body count.

Weaving between the historical, cultural, and personal, award-winning author Philip Hoare reveals a web of creative minds and artistic iconoclasts fired by the wild and revolutionary genius of William Blake. Blake is one of the greatest artists in western history. His art envelops us. He invented a way to put words and images on a page to express his poetry and art in a manner that has never been truly equaled. Even in his own time, his fans and followers were left speechless.

A journey through life, the universe and everything. From what actually happened in the big bang to the accidental discovery of Post-it notes, science is packed with surprising discoveries. Did you know, for instance, that if you were to get too close to a black hole it would suck you up like a noodle (it's called spaghettification), why your keyboard is laid out in QWERTY (it's not to make it easier to type) or whether the invention of the wheel was less important to civilisation than the bag (think about it)? New Scientist does.

City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring 'Perfection' and 'Correctness' to an imperfect world. But before these ruthless Tyrant Philosophers send in their legions, they despatch Outreach – the rain before the storm. Outreach is that part of the Pal machine responsible for diplomacy — converting enemies into friends, achieving through words what an army of five thousand could not, urging the oppressed to overthrow the bloody-handed priests, evil necromancers and greedy despots that subjugate them.

On suspension and unable to work, DCI Domenic Jejeune finds his attention snared by an unexplained death at an Antarctic research base. Meanwhile, DS Danny Maik investigates a string of arson attacks in Norfolk. When a corpse is discovered in a bird hide, Danny's investigation escalates. It appears the body links the two enquiries, but the men are unable to share information. As they attempt to unravel a twisted web of leads involving Antarctic researchers, climate scientists and billionaire philanthropists, Jejeune is forced to decide how much he is willing to sacrifice.

Prior to assuming his new role with a different constabulary, Danny Maik has taken a holiday in Singapore to reconcile with an old friend, Guy Trueman. When a street brawl turns deadly, Danny is facing a charge of manslaughter, but when evidence emerges that he may have planned the victim's murder, Maik is looking at the death penalty. Back in Norfolk, Maik's replacement is trying to resurrect his career after an earlier serious error. At first, the signs are promising. His astute observations turn the apparent suicide of a local pheasant farmer into murder.

Simon Peake does care… he just isn’t sure about what right now. The ex-soldier’s life is as close to rock bottom as it gets. He needs a job and he needs a quiet life. What he gets is a whole load of mess working for New York-based Irish mobster Harry Lafferty. A job that requires him to use his special skills on some very unsavory people. His relationship with Harry’s niece isn’t exactly conducive to a quiet existence either…

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the last decimal. And then, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother - its troubling financial problems included. The worst of these issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters and dangerous men are keen to get their money back. But what Henri really can't compute is love. He meets Laura, an artist with a joie de vivre and erratic lifestyle that bewilders him.

Charlie Cooper is sent to Prague to investigate—and eliminate—the leader of a group of far right hooligans guilty of the murder of an Interpol agent. Cooper is on his final warning and is expected to get in and out with minimal fuss, leaving just the body of his target in his wake. But then Cooper meets a young man who has fallen under the spell of the group's charismatic leader . . . will he be able to ignore his conscience and follow his orders, or will he complicate matters by trying to get the young man to safety first?

The ordered calm of Gloucester Abbey is shattered by the murder of one of the monks. The Abbey becomes paralysed with fear and the Abbot is ill-equipped to deal with such a heinous crime, especially as suspicion inevitably falls on the brothers themselves. Ralph Delchard, a former soldier in the era-defining Battle of Hastings, and Gervase Bret, an accomplished lawyer, are investigating a local land dispute when news of the vicious murder reaches them.

As England descends into civil war, John Tradescant the Younger, gardener to King Charles I, finds his loyalties in question, his status an ever-growing danger to his family. Fearing royal defeat and determined to avoid serving the rebels, John escapes to the royalist colony of Virginia, a land bursting with fertility that stirs his passion for botany. Only the native American peoples understand the forest, and John is drawn to their way of life just as they come into fatal conflict with the colonial settlers.

Bryan Duffy is Witness X - a government agent implicated in a national scandal and banished to Spain until the agenda can be moved on. But when North Korean hit men attack a seeming innocent on the streets of London, Duffy is called back to the fold. He is tasked with finding the woman's assailants and bringing them to justice. Why has the woman been attacked? Duffy investigates and finds himself sucked into a whirlwind of action and mayhem that is particularly well suited to his special set of skills....