Showing results by narrator "Mark Meadows" in All Categories

A novel of Leonardo da Vinci - visionary painter of the Mona Lisa, the smiling, enigmatic Gioconda. We know him as the Renaissance genius: inventor, scientist, artist. They knew him as Leonardo from Vinci: heretic, butcher, lunatic. A solitary child, Leonardo's only intimate is Lisa Gherardini, the girl who spies on him in his workshop. Spurned by his tutor, he is sent by his despairing father to Florence as an apprentice.

DCI Mark Lapslie suffers from a rare neurological condition that ‘cross-wires’ his senses. The sickening clamour of sounds he can taste has smothered his marriage and stifled his career...and it’s getting worse. His colleagues have written him off as a drunk – or worse – and Lapslie has quarantined himself in an isolated Essex cottage. Carl Whittley has got his own problems to deal with too: he’s just tortured a minor TV celebrity to death and blown an apparently anonymous commuter to pieces.

As DI Dominic Bell and his team investigate the series of murders in hidden locations across London, they fail to find the connection between the victims. The only person who can help is Clementine Starke, an academic researching adult thrill seekers. However, Clementine is haunted by dark and violent obsessions, including her former relationship with DI Dominic Bell. As the body count rises, Clementine Starke and DI Dominic Bell form an uneasy alliance to hunt the killer.

Former chief investigator Jan Kalisz lives a dangerous double life, forced to work with the occupiers as he gathers information for the fledgling Polish resistance. Even his family cannot be told his true allegiance. When the niece of a Wehrmacht general is found terribly mutilated, Jan links the murder to other killings that are of less interest to his new overlords. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a psychopathic killer known as The Artist. But, shunned as a Nazi collaborator, can he solve the case before another innocent girl is taken?

Henry’s confession of spying on Russians in London doesn’t get the reaction he expects. Nea has her own dark secrets to guard and refuses to see her patient again. Now frightened and on his own, a chain of events leads to murder. Having stumbled upon a poison at the heart of the British establishment, Henry fears for his life and decides to lie low at his holiday home in Lisbon. A professional killer catches up with him and a terrifying chase across Europe ensues.

We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but which still make us who we are. It articulates the conflicts and contradictions that we need to address in order to better understand the world we live in. A work honed from a decade's teaching at the New School, where Critchley on Tragedy is one of the most popular courses, Tragedy, the Greeks and Us is a compelling examination of the history of tragedy.

Doc Martin arrives in the picture-postcard fishing village of Portwenn, Cornwall. Once a high-flying London surgeon, his suddenly developed blood phobia means he has to take a job in a local practice. But while the Doc's medical skills are second to none, his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. He immediately starts infuriating the locals, none more so than school teacher Louisa Glasson....

The last text Daisy Parsloe received was from her smart fridge about some mouldy potato salad. She's not doing well at work, her love life is haphazard and her elderly mother seems to be losing her mind. And now, apparently even the appliances are judging her life choices. What Daisy doesn't know is that the appliances are also plotting. They've joined together, across the internet of things, to nudge Daisy in the right direction. But it isn't long before their well-meaning interference starts to get noticed and the race is on to find Daisy's Mr Right before the plugs are pulled.

Michael has never seen a whale - at least, not a real one. Everyone knows they disappeared from the waters around the little island of Liberty years ago. But then a mysterious stranger comes to Liberty and offers Michael what he's always dreamed of: his very own boat. All he has to do in return is help the stranger find the whales - and promise to never tell a soul. Michael is about to learn that sometimes dreams come at a price....

Narrated by Nico, Double Cross is full of telekinetic action as the Medusa Project team arrive in Sydney, Australia, for another exciting mission - and come face-to-face with two more Medusa teens: Cal, a boy who can fly, and Amy, a girl who can shapeshift...but who is double crossing who? The fifth fantastic Medusa Project adventure from Sophie McKenzie.

Aged seventeen, Lee is inside for a crime he has committed. And he soon finds out that prison is not the holiday camp he’s heard about. Warned to ‘play by the rules’, he has to decide whose rules - the screws’ or the other cons’. Life in a Young Offenders Institution is about survival. But the real struggle is inside Lee himself. Is he destined to be a ‘career con’ or can he choose to change his life? A powerful, compelling story for older children about one boy’s experience of prison, from acclaimed author J.A. Jarman.

Michael and Francis are best friends, drawn together by their common secret - Evgard. Evgard is a fantasy world that Michael and Francis have created together, a world both fierce and dangerous. It is also a world that has become weirdly entwined in both their lives; actions in one world are uncannily mirrored by actions in the other.

The real '60s began on 5 October 1962. On that remarkable Friday, the Beatles hit the world with their first single, ‘Love Me Do’, and the first James Bond film, Dr No, had its world premiere in London: two icons of the future heralding a social and cultural revolution. Sometimes indignant, sometimes admiring, always empathetic, On the Cusp evokes a world of seaside holidays, of church fetes, of Steptoe and Son - a world still of seemingly settled social and economic certainties, but in fact on the edge of fundamental change.

King Lear demands that his three daughters tell him how much they love him. When his youngest, Cordelia, refuses, he casts her out and divides his kingdom between the other two. But when those two reject him, he descends into despair and madness...

After an unspecified near-future disaster, one English town survives under the protection of the surviving computer algorithms of the Process, which governs every aspect of their lives. But now the Process is making soldiers. It is readying for war.

This gripping and vivid book is the first comprehensive world history of the most important transport innovation of the modern age. Steven Parissien examines the impact, development and significance of the automobile over its turbulent and colourful 130-year history, but this is not just the story of horsepower and performance. It is a tale of people, of flamboyant entrepreneurs, shrewd businessmen and gifted engineers; of outstanding success and abject failure.

What secrets lay buried in the heart of the forest? When Maya strays into the forest she also walks straight into a nightmare. It's not just the horrific discovery she makes among the trees, it's what's waiting for her at home. Something too terrifying to believe in. She's not even sure she believes it herself. Perhaps she's going mad, only imagining the sounds in the night and the feeling of being stalked.

The Taliban have disappeared from Kabul's streets, but the long shadows of their brutal regime remain...In his short life, 11-year-old Fawad has known more grief than most: his father and brother have been killed; his sister has been abducted; and Fawad and his mother, Mariya, must rely on the charity of family to eke out a hand-to-mouth existence. But despite their struggles, Fawad's love of life never fades.

Bibi feels out of place everywhere - except for Tyme’s End, the deserted house that she breaks into when she thinks nobody is around. There she unexpectedly meets Oliver Gardner, the owner of the house, who has just returned after ten years away. Their stories and the story of Oliver’s grandfather becomes entwined - for Tyme’s End is more than just a deserted house. It is a house that can be romantic, beguiling, sinister and malevolent. A house that had a cruel and manipulative owner.

Taut, brooding and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness.