Showing results by narrator "David Rintoul" in All Categories

The battle for control of Richmond, the Confederate capital, continues through the hot summer of 1862. Captain Nate Starbuck, a Yankee fighting for the Southern cause, has to survive and win with his ragged Company in the bitter struggle not only against the formidable Northern army, but equally in opposition to his own superiors who would like nothing better than to see Nate Starbuck dead and dishonoured.

A copperhead is a turncoat, a northerner who sympathises with the South. Captain Nate Starbuck, forced out of his beloved Legion by the enmity of its founder, General Washington Faulconer, becomes caught up in dangerous double game of espionage.

Right at the moment Nate Starbuck begins to doubt his own courage, the Faulconer Legion is spitefully stripped from him and he is given command of the Yellowlegs, a battalion of cowards, malingerers, stragglers, skulkers, and convicts led by cowards and bullies. In order to restore the honour of the Special Battalion, Starbuck pits himself and his Yellowlegs against the Union army at Sharpsburg in one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War.

A Moment of Grace is the searing, tender account of Patrick’s life with Nicola and her illness, and his life after her loss. But it is more than a story of illness and unbearable grief: it is a book of memory, of home, of family. It is a tale of the transfiguring power of love. Heartbreaking, life-affirming and truly unforgettable, A Moment of Grace is one man’s journey to find life after his wife’s death.

Hame, n. Scottish form of 'home': a valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin. In the wake of the breakdown of her relationship, Mhairi McPhail dismantles her life in New York and moves with her nine-year-old daughter, Agnes, to the remote Scottish island of Fascaray. Mhairi has been commissioned to write a biography of the late Bard of Fascaray, Grigor McWatt, a cantankerous poet with an international reputation. But who was Grigor McWatt?

Shots echo through Vienna's streets at dawn. A sniper has holed up in a church tower and threatens to shoot anyone who dares to show themselves on the square below. Constable Karl Gruber can persuade Freud to help him find a diplomatic solution to the situation. Under time pressure and against strong resistance from Karl's police colleagues, Freud negotiates with the man who - just like Karl - fought in the front lines in World War I.

William Topaz McGonagall is widely renowned as one of the world's worst-ever published poets. Yet his discordant muse is hugely popular all over the world - no less a figure than Spike Milligan was obsessed with him. But how do we account for this morbid fascination with verse of little or no discernible merit whatsoever?

Gunder Jomann, a quiet, middle-aged man from a peaceful Norwegian community, thinks his life has been made complete when he returns from a trip to India a married man. But on the day his Indian bride is due to join him, he is called to the hospital to his sister's bedside. The local taxi driver sent instead to meet the bride at the airport returns without her. Then the town is shocked by the news of an Indian woman found bludgeoned to death in a nearby meadow.

Amidst strikes, conflicts and untold hardships, the Italian prisoners of war sent to a tiny Orkney island during World War Two create a monument to the human spirit’s ability to lift itself above great adversity. One artist falls in love with a local Orkney woman and leaves a token of his love in the chapel. It is still there today and, until now, no-one has ever known its true meaning.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell lead the three Darling children over the rooftops of London and away to Neverland - the island where the lost boys play. Magic and mischief is in the air, but if villainous Captain Hook has his way, before long someone will be swimming with the crocodiles.

The secret library is in the basement of a bombed building in a heavily shelled area of Darayya. Around it, shattered buildings that were once homes and offices lie in crumbling, treacherous piles. A desert of shattered grey concrete festooned with twisted metal and charred wires. Deep beneath this scene of frightening devastation lies the secret library. No signs mark its presence. Locals fear that Syrian government planes will bomb it if they know where it is.  

Harry Caldecote is the most charming man you'll ever meet, a convivial academic who devotes his life to others. He is on call when his alcoholic niece falls into strange hands, when his brother threatens to emulate Wordsworth, when his son's lesbian lodger is beaten up by her girlfriend. He endures misplaced seductions, swindles and aggressive dogs just to keep the peace at the King's pub in Shepherd's Hill.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why were they smiling, what made them sad? What emerges are surprising and poignant tales of love and friendship in a variety of settings.

Deep in the mountains of north-east Scotland lies Glen Conach, a place of secrets and memories, fable and history. In particular, it holds the stories of three different eras, separated by centuries yet linked by location, by an ancient manuscript and by echoes that travel across time.

When two little children are murdered and the suspect - the children's mother as well as one of Freud's patients - is arrested, the Professor is compelled into action: he is sure the suspect is innocent. Instead he suspects the children's father committed the murder. He is able to persuade Karl Gruber of his suspicions.

A bank is robbed in Vienna. The constables quickly arrive on the scene - one of the bank robbers is arrested while the others flee with the loot. Karl involves Sigmund in the questioning of the arrested man - the mentally unstable man is the only chance they have to find the other robbers and their spoils.

When an old prison is renovated, the fragile diary of one of the inmates is found. The entries contained detailed information about a series of unsolved murders from a long time ago. With Anna's support, Karl starts to interview former inmates of the prison while Sigmund tries to identify the killer on the basis of the diary entries.