Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley" in All Categories

London, 1811: The twisting streets of Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries. A brilliantly imagined debut from a major new literary voice.

Below a dark and angry sea, men in the submarines of the British Navy prowl. Explosive spherical mines lie silently in wait for their weathered vessels. At any time, the abyssals of the Atlantic can be rocked by the terrifying din of a mine exploding and a boat imploding. Manning these cramped vessels is a fulltime hardship, with myriad risks and sometimes terrifying emergencies.

Colin Bannock is hiding quite the secret. By day, he’s a smooth-talking lawyer. After hours, he is someone else entirely. He corners Arnold Landon, wanting him to join his society of history fanatics. Appalled, Arnold declines outright. He’s never been a joiner and, besides, he has enough on his plate already. He is hunting for a lost and ancient treasure. And he knows the hiding place is close. Then Bannock’s body washes up on the banks of the River Tyne, battered and bloated beyond recognition. Was he also chasing the mythic treasure?

The lieutenant is summoned by the admiralty and given command of the brig Triton. But like the rest of the Nnvy, Triton's crew has mutinied. Sympathizing with some of their complaints, Ramage also knows that if he fails to deliver three sealed dispatches to admirals off Brest and Cadiz and in the Caribbean, he will become a convenient scapegoat.

Barbary Coast pirates - the Saraceni - are capturing slaves and terrorizing fishing villages along the coast of Sicily. Ramage and his crew are sent to track them down before they can devastate another town.

The vicious mutineers aboard the British ship Jocasta had surrendered their vessel to Spain. Sailing aboard the frigate Calypso, Captain Lord Ramage receives admiralty orders to recover her by any means.

Ramage hopes to enjoy a well-deserved leave when he receives new orders: Ccmmission and take command of the Dido--a massive, 74-gun ship that carries enough weight of metal to destroy a frigate in a single broadside or sweep a ship's decks clear of men. Accompanied by the courageous crew of the Calypso, Ramage ventures to sea once again, bound for the West Indies, where he faces the challenge of commanding this massive weapon of war.

Eleven-year-old Amelia Fairwick is eagerly waiting for her widowed father to return from his business trip. But a letter arrives with shattering news - Papa has been lost in a terrible hotel fire. Now Amelia must leave her London home to live in America with a relative she has never met. Amelia thinks things can’t get much worse when stern Cousin Charlotte travels with her on the voyage across the Atlantic. Amelia must stay alone in the cabin, talking to no one. But the day the ship arrives in New York City is worst of all....

Both pseudoscience and science fiction (SF) are creative endeavors that have little in common with academic science, beyond the superficial trappings of jargon and subject matter. The most obvious difference between the two is that pseudoscience is presented as fact, not fiction. This engaging and well-researched audiobook explores a wide range of intriguing similarities and differences between pseudoscience and the fictional science found in SF.

The lieutenant is ordered to proceed to Gibraltar "with all possible despatch" aboard His Majesty's ship Kathleen, to support Lord Nelson in a battle with the Spanish off Cape Trafalgar.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

From the moment Karen Stannard comes striding in the door, Arnold Landon knows his workplace will never be the same. Now, he is saddled with a project he never wanted: the Ridgeway Viking Trust. Its shady leaders tell him there’s treasure buried in the rolling Northumberland Hills—they just need one more payout to reach it. But is there more to the Trust than meets the eye? Muck-raking journalist Alan Crickley seems to think so. He’s got the scent of corruption and he’s on the trail... Until the day he drives his car into a ditch, a stone’s throw from the dig.

A skeleton buried on a lonely Northumberland hill? Nothing wrong with that. Garrigill was once an ancient burial ground. Archaeologist Rena Williams is here to excavate the site. She is an old friend of Arnold’s. And with his help, her team have uncovered more than a few old bones already. But never like this. The bludgeoned skull, the modern dental work…nothing about this death feels accidental. Or even all that old. Who was the dead man, and what did he know that was worth killing for?

The West Indian bases are desperate: Post vessels - a vital communications link between England and the West Indies in the war against France - are mysteriously disappearing and no packets have arrived with orders in months. Were the privateers out in full force again? Had Napoleon's navy a secret new weapon? Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage sets out from Jamaica to discover what treachery is threatening to throw the British navy into chaos.

Across the English Channel, Napoleon has amassed a great invasion flotilla. English forces, under Lord Nelson, are all but paralyzed, not knowing the size, strength, or time of the foreign onslaught. In a daring spy scheme to protect British shores, Ramage is chosen to plumb the secrets of the French, and the penalty for failure is the guillotine.

The youngest captain in His Majesty's Navy, with a reputation for landing impossible assignments, Lord Ramage is dispatched to the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Diamond Rock. The mission seems humdrum: barricade the French within Fort Royal. But sent to sea in the Juno with a crew grown restless and undisciplined under the prior commmand of a drunk, Ramage realizes his vessel may not be up to battle with the French.

Captain Lord Ramage and the Calypso return from Devil's Island, but Ramage's new wife, Sarah, is missing. The captain would like nothing better than to sail home immediately, but instead he is ordered to shepherd a lumbering convoy of merchant ships back to England. On the way bizarre events lead him to a full court-martial in Plymouth, presided over by his old nemesis, Rear Admiral Goddard. Ramage must clear his name--or face a sentence of death!

Taking the lessons Machiavelli recorded in his political masterpiece The Prince, Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, shows how they can still apply today. Illustrating each of Machiavelli's maxims with a description of events that occurred during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister, Powell provides a gripping account of life inside Number 10 and draws lessons from those experiences for anyone today who has access to the levers of power.

With Napoleon Bonaparte at the height of his powers, the Mediterranean can safely be considered exclusive French territory. So when Captain Ramage and his crew are sent alone into Mediterranean waters, they can expect to be outnumbered. But it is the French who discover they have an enemy for whom they had not bargained.

Using hundreds of primary sources, Charles Dickens in Love narrates the story of the most intense romances of Charles Dickens’ life and shows how his novels both testify to his own strongest affections and serve as memorials to the young women he loved all too well, if not always wisely. Charles Dickens has no rival as the most fertile creative imagination since William Shakespeare, and no one influenced his imagination more powerfully than these three women, his muses and teachers in the school of love.