Mostrando resultados por narrador "Geoffrey Howard" en Todas las categorías

It isn't the rain that upsets Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It isn't the dilapidated barn in which she is forced to seek shelter. No, what upsets her is the human skeleton she discovers there, neatly packed into two blue fertilizer bags.

In an exchange of favors with an art dealer colleague, Jonathan Argyll unluckily offers to transport a painting from Paris back to Rome. It seems routine work, and Jonathan gets to meet his girlfriend, Flavia, who works for Rome's Art Theft Squad. But when a would-be thief tries to take the painting at the train station, and the art dealer seems less interested in his purchase once he sees it, Jonathan wonders why, as events unfold, someone is willing to kill for it.

A colleague's suicide. Pedophiles. A missing child. A serial killer. You never know your luck, muses Rebus. Driven by instinct and experience, he searches for connections, against official skepticism. But at night, unsoothed by whiskey, Rebus faces his ghosts, and the prospect of his daughter's possibly permanent paralysis. Soldiering through dank, desperate slums and the tiny flats of the Scottish chic, Rebus uncovers a chain of crime, deceit, and hidden sins.

The story of K - the unwanted land surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle and yet cannot go home - seems to depict, like a dream from the deepest recesses of consciousness, an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. A perpetual human condition lies at the heart of this labyrinthine world: dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, reason and nonsense, harmony and disintegration.

In this landmark study of Italy from the 14th through the early 16th centuries, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt chronicles the rise of Florence and Venice as powerful city-states, the breakup of the medieval worldview that came with the rediscovery of Greek and Roman culture, and the new emphasis on the role of the individual. All these, Burckhardt explains, went hand in hand with the explorations of science and the more naturalistic depiction of the world in art and literature.

Young Otto is born into a warring household in a lawless age. Having no mother, he is sent by his father, a valiant robber baron, to be safely raised by the monks until the age of 12. But when he returns, gentle Otto can no longer escape the bitter blood feud between his father and the rival house of Trutz-Drachen. He is kidnapped by the rival family and his hand is cut off, to be replaced forever by a silver one. Can his brave father and his captor's kind daughter, Pauline, help him escape?

Four thousand years ago, a stranger's death and his ominous "gift" of gold precipitates the building of what will become known as one of mankind's most remarkable achievements. Stonehenge catapults us into a powerful and vibrant world of ritual and sacrifice at once timeless and wholly original. This is an epic tale of patricide, betrayal and murder; of brotherly rivalry; and of the never-ending quest for power, wealth, and spiritual fulfillment.

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, whose thirst for power cannot be quenched, has gained control of New Orleans, a move that gives him potential mastery of the Mississippi River Valley. A country as strong as France could stop America's free-trade market from growing along the great waterway. As France forces the young nation's hand economically and politically, the greatest minds and visionaries of a young America struggle to hold it all together.

It’s amazing what bodily injury can do for a man. A fall from a racehorse left brilliant jockey Sid Halley dangerously depressed, with a wrecked hand and the need for a new career. It was a bullet wound that helped him find one.

The Romanovs provides the answers, describing in suspenseful detail the dramatic efforts to discover the truth. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie presents a colorful panorama of contemporary characters, illuminating the major scientific dispute between Russian experts and a team of Americans, whose findings, along with those of DNA scientists from Russia, America, and Great Britain, all contributed to solving one of the great mysteries of the twentieth century.

In the rich turbulence of English history, one day stands magnificently apart: June 15, 1215, the day of the signing of the Magna Charta. On this day, the first blow for English freedom was struck and forever affected the Western world. Here is the story of three true men, Stephen Langton, Williams Marshall, and Hubert de Burgh, whose heroic deeds are set against those of the ever deceitful and crafty King John.

In this remarkable novel, Mauriac brings his extraordinary talent for probing the inmost core of the human character to what is arguably the most exciting theme in the world: the battle for the human soul. In all of literature there can be few more appalling studies of a soul devoured by pride and avarice, corroded by hatred.

Simon Brett's oldest and most beloved character, Charles Paris, is back. Paris, the often out-of-work actor, has a good part for a change, playing Sir Toby Belch in a summer festival production of "Twelfth Night." But when the director takes ill and then Paris' friend in the production is the apparent victim of intentional food poisoning meant for Paris, it's not long until the bodies start to turn up. Paris is forced to deal with a wild young director whose idea of Shakespeare the bard himself would hate.

Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, of betrayal, guilt, and intrigue, begins with a bomb that kills its intended target, a hated Russian minister of police, along with a number of innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape.

The Hopwicke Country House Hotel once hosted a rich clientele. But hard times have forced Suzy Longthorne to open her doors to the Pillars of Sussex, a group of elitist businessmen. Suzy recruits Jude to help out, but the next morning, Jude discovers the body of a supposed initiate of the Pillars hanging from the beam of a bed. The police rule the death a suicide. The Pillars deny that the victim was an initiate. Jude knows both parties have something to hide, and she's determined to uncover the truth.

For millennia, humankind and the other intelligent races have studied the bizarre and unfathomable constructs of the legendary beings known as the Builders. But for all that study, they are still no closer to figuring out who - or what - the Builders have been, or where they have gone.

The search for the Builders, the legendary alien race whose unfathomable constructs continue to perplex scholars and explorers alike, has led Builder expert Darya Lang, adventurer Hans Rebka, and treasure hunters Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial to an unknown Builder artifact far outside the spiral arm. There they find the Zardalu, once the greatest menace ever known to the worlds of the spiral arm, enslaving entire races and exterminating others, guided by the unswerving belief in their own supremacy.

Set in Malaya, Almayer's Folly is Joseph Conrad's first novel. In it, he charts the decline of a Dutch merchant after a 25 year struggle against overwhelming odds. Though married to a bitter and hateful Malayan wife, Almayer refuses to accept the financial ruin which he has precipitated. Instead, he dreams of fantastic wealth and a return to the civilization of his youth, accompanied by his loving daughter, Nina.

Charles Paris has landed a dual role in a lavish West End musical: onstage as a bit player, offstage as an undercover sleuth. The production's nervous backers fear that someone is trying to kill the play. The ultimate showstopper would be to eliminate the star.

"I want you all out, gone, dead, exterminated!" high strung Alex Household had cried out when, after a lifetime of struggle, he lost the starring role in a new play called The Hooded Owl to an actor who couldn't remember his lines. But did that mean that it was Alex who had shot the leading man dead during his climactic speech? Charles Paris, for one, could see many logical suspects: from the devious producer, to the gullible playwright, to the young starlet's overprotective mother.