Showing results by narrator "Steven Pacey" in All Categories

While centurions Macro and Cato are returning to Rome from a harrowing campaign against the Parthians, their transport ship is almost capsized by a tidal wave. They barely make it to the port of Matala in Crete, where they are stunned to find a devastated town. An earthquake has struck the island, destroying its cities and killing thousands.

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds. With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch.

Best selling author Sidney Sheldon picks up where his megahit, The Other Side of Midnight, left off, revisiting and continuing the story and characters from the earlier novel. The story moves from Greece to other exotic locales as Sheldon evokes a compelling portrayal of Catherine Douglas and her fight against a terrifying destiny.

When a new empire rises, and old one must fall. After 16 years of bloody war against Rome, Hannibal Barca is on the verge of defeat. On the plains of Zama, Felix and his brother Antonius stand in the formidable Roman legions, ready to deliver the decisive blow. Victory will establish Rome as the pre-eminent power in the ancient world. But in northern Greece, Philip V of Macedon is determined to restore Alexander the Great's kingdom to its former glory.

Patrick Hamilton is renowned for his gritty, slice-of-life tales chronicling the hopes, dreams and obsessions of London's working class in the inter-war years. This collection brings together his key pieces, together with some lesser-known classics and a bonus 2004 documentary exploring his achievements and legacy.

The cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it is just like any other place. As part of the same rapidly changing world, it shares the same hopes and fears, and the same kinds of crime, as any number of towns up and down the land.When one day DC Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieron Bright, he is met by four plainclothes officers. He is asked to take the lead role in a complex, potentially dangerous undercover operation and must leave town immediately.

John Self is addicted to life. Porn freak and jetsetter, a aficionado of wealth and women, Self is the shameless heir to a fast-food culture where money beats out an insistent invitation to futile self-gratification. Out in New York, mingling with the mighty, making a fortune but spending more, Self is embroiled in the corruption, the brutality and the obscenity of the money conspiracy.

Now recuperated after the violent incident that cost him his arm - and nearly his life - DCS Serrailler has returned to work, though he prefers to spend his spare time sketching the medieval angels being restored on the cathedral roof. With crime rates down, Lafferton has been quiet, until one night when two men open their front door to a distressing scene. Serrailler makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident, and the stress of this, combined with the ongoing trauma of losing his arm, takes its toll.

The kidnapping of a young man on a country road in Oxfordshire is but the first brutal step in a ruthless plan to force the President of the United States out of office. If it succeeds, he will be psychologically and emotionally destroyed. Only one man can stop it - Quinn, the world's foremost Negotiator, who must bargain for the life of an innocent man, unaware that ransom was never the kidnapper's real objective...

The Union army may be full of bastards, but there's only one who thinks he can save the day singlehanded when the Gurkish come calling: the incomparable Colonel Sand dan Glokta. Curnden Craw and his dozen are out to recover a mysterious item from beyond the Crinna. Only one small problem: no one seems to know what the item is. Shevedieh, the self-styled best thief in Styria, lurches from disaster to catastrophe alongside her best friend and greatest enemy, Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely 40, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.

Recovering on a remote Scottish island, his peace doesn’t last long. He is pulled in to a murder inquiry by the overstretched local police. A newcomer, popular with the islanders, has died in perplexing circumstances. The community's reactions are complicated and fragile. It’s good to be back on the job. And when Simon returns to Lafferton, an arsonist is on the rampage and a woman whose daughter disappeared some years before is haunting the police station seeking closure. She will not let it rest, and Simon is called in to do a cold-case review.

The enigmatic and brooding Detective Chief Police Inspector Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs operations in Lafferton as a waste of time. The small-time dealers picked up outside the local high school can’t - or won’t - turn in any valuable names, so they are merely given a fine and the trail runs cold. But when the body of a 22-year-old drug addict is found in neighboring Starley, the case pulls Serrailler into the underbelly of an elaborate drug running operation that pushes narcotics out from the cities, into the suburbs, and right down to villages.

A must-listen for any J. G. Ballard fan, this “capstone to a magnificent career” (San Francisco Chronicle) is the essential sequel to Empire of the Sun. Published in 1991, this semiautobiographical novel is a daring masterpiece from “one of the most important and intelligent voices in contemporary fiction” (Susan Sontag). “Rueful the way Primo Levi’s work was” (New York Times Book Review), the novel follows 15-year-old Jim Graham as he leaves the ruins of postwar Shanghai, only to find that he cannot escape his own obsession with death.

On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specialises in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.

It is autumn 1981 when inconceivable horror comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenager is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last—revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day. But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night.

In Talking It Over, Gillian and Stuart were married until Oliver - witty, feckless Oliver - stole her away. In Love, etc, Julian Barnes revisits Stuart, Gillian, and Oliver, using the same intimate technique of allowing the characters to speak directly to the listener, to whisper their secrets, to argue for their version of the truth… Love, etc is a compelling exploration of contemporary love and its betrayals.

One empire will rise Flamininus of Rome and Macedonian King Philip's battle-hardened armies are on the march towards their final, climactic encounter. The other must burn. The outcome will decide the fate of Greece. But, on opposite sides, legionary Felix and Phalanx soldier Demetrios have more pressing concerns: staying alive long enough to taste glory....

They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

Trouble is brewing in Egypt. Rebel gladiator Ajax and his men have been posing as Roman soldiers and attacking naval bases, merchant vessels, and villages. Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro have been charged with the task of tracking down the renegade warrior before the problem gets out of control. Joining forces with Legion III, the hope is to destroy their enemy on the battlefield. But the cunning gladiator has other ideas....