Showing results by narrator "Dan Bottomley" in All Categories

Eugene Onegin is young, handsome, rich ... and bored. Nothing impresses him: not his grand house filled with expensive furniture, not the glittering balls he attends, not the sumptuous dinners he eats. When his uncle dies, leaving him his rundown estate, Eugene moves to the countryside. Here he meets the lively and intelligent Lensky, and the beautiful, quiet Tatyana. Will Eugene grasp this opportunity for a new and happy life, or will his bad attitude get in the way?

After the year Aidan and I have had, we needed some respite. My husband is overworked, whilst I'm anxious about the past, so renting a night at this converted barn house in the countryside seems like the perfect place for the pair of us to relax and unwind. It might be situated at the bottom of a large garden, but it's private enough that we don't have to mingle with the homeowners who live nearby. Or at least that's what I thought . . .

When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague–the poet–it is not long before it begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn’t; she has everything he wants. While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows.

Pierre is nothing like his confident, handsome friend Andrei. He is awkward and shy - and when his father dies and leaves Pierre a vast fortune, suddenly very popular. As war rages on the edges of Moscow and the charming young Natasha catches the eye of both friends, Pierre must decide what he wants and who he is. Can Pierre finally find happiness, and will Natasha decide where her heart truly lies?

The case was closed. Until people started dying DI Thomas Ridpath was on the up in the Manchester CID: a promising detective who captured a notorious serial killer. But ten years later he's recovering from a serious illness and on the brink of being forced out of the police. Then the murders...

Dimitri is angry and reckless. Ivan is smart and logical. Alyosha is caring and forgiving. And their half-brother Smerdyakov is treated no better than a servant by their father. When Dimitri falls in love with a woman who isn't his fiancée and sets out to get the money his father is keeping from him, tensions within the family run higher than ever. Can Alyosha bring the Karamazov family together before disaster strikes?

A boy lives in a remote, snow-bound village with his elderly grandmother. Their traditional way of life is threatened by the changing snow and ice: it melts faster every year. When the sea-ice collapses while he is out hunting, he only just escapes with his life and is left stranded in the Arctic tundra. Meanwhile a girl is trying to adapt to another new school. Her father promises his new job at an oil company will mean they never have to move again, but not long after he starts, his behaviour becomes odd and secretive. 

When ten-year-old Felix drops a penny in the wishing fountain at the center of town, he really doesn't expect his sixteen-year-old sister to suddenly like him again, or to offer to share a cinnamon bun or watch cartoons like they used to. She hasn't even remembered she was supposed to give him a ride home! But someone else is at the fountain too: a strange old man with a fishing pole who claims to be invisible.

Podkin is the son of a warrior chieftain. He knows that one day it will be up to him to lead his warren and guard it in times of danger. But for now, he's quite happy to laze around. Then Podkin's home is brutally attacked, and the young rabbits are forced to flee. With danger all around them, Podkin must protect his family and attempt to defeat the most horrifying enemy rabbitkind has ever known.

After a tornado uproots her from her home in Kansas, Dorothy and her beloved dog, Toto, are whisked away to the strange and magical Land of Oz! Landing in Munchkin Country and accidentally killing the Wicked Witch of the East, Dorothy and Toto embark on a quest to find the only person who can help them return home: Oz, the Great and Terrible Wizard.

They are waiting for death. He is waiting to kill them. In May 2020, fourteen-year-old Andrew Golding went out for a walk following a row with his mum. He was never seen again. Four years later, when the press discovers police errors in Andrew Golding's case, DI Ridpath is called in to...

DI Thomas Ridpath is in the process of getting his life back together when everything goes wrong. Caught in a gruesome motorway incident, one question remains: why did nobody else see what happened? Ridpath's investigations soon pulls the police force itself into question, and hints at something even more sinister. With Manchester on the brink of violence unlike anything seen in decades, Ridpath must battle this unprecedented conflict alongside his own demons.

In Manchester, a block of flats is burning. The only victim is a middle-aged man, sat watching TV. Are the fire and the man's death an accident or is something more frightening at work? Meanwhile, DI Ridpath is back with his wife and enjoying work at the Coroner's Office, his myeloma still in remission. But the quiet life is soon shattered by a new threat. More corpses start appearing; charred, burnt, silent bodies, strewn in the streets and lodged in buildings. Next to each one is a chilling message sprayed in orange ink.

To love and to cherish, till death did them part... Two desiccated bodies are found in each other's arms in the bricked up room of a derelict Victorian warehouse. After six months of work, the police have nothing and Ridpath is finally called in to investigate. Dubbed the Romeo and Juliet...

Pick a card... Pick a side... Ryder Waites thought amnesia from a childhood accident was his biggest problem. Then a fallen angel tried to kill him on the London Underground. Now he's dodging assassins while uncovering an impossible truth: he's the heir to the Royal Court of Spades, part of one of the most powerful magical organisations in existence. But someone murdered his mother — the Queen of Spades — before she could restore his missing memories... and powers.

Three severed hands. No clues. A race against time. Three embalmed hands are discovered in a disused Victorian house. Is it a gangland ritual? The work of a cult? Or just a prank played by Medical Students? And what happened to the bodies? Meanwhile the Coroner needs to issue a Presumption of...

The earth has shifted on its axis and a mysterious dark mark has appeared on the sun—the whole world is in peril! But billionaire tech genius Howard Hansom has a plan... When Grian's sister goes missing he's convinced she has run off to Hansom's new city to help save the world. But when Grian and his two friends Jeffrey and Shelli track her there they find that nothing is quite as it seems. Why is everything so secret? Where is the mysterious Area 13? What does Howard Hansom want with all the people he has enticed to live in his city?

Three embalmed hands are discovered in a disused Victorian house. Is it a gangland ritual? The work of a cult? Or just a prank played by Medical Students? And what happened to the bodies? Meanwhile the Coroner needs to issue a Presumption of Death certificate on a teenage girl who vanished eleven years ago in mysterious circumstances. As hints emerge the two cases are connected, DI Ridpath pushes himself to the limit to find out what really happened.

A bloodied body is found in a Manchester Immigrant Removal Centre. The investigating officer and the pathologist seem certain: a suicide. But for DI Ridpath something doesn't add up. As the evidence starts to unravel, and with few leads, the pressure is on to find answers before the Inquest is closed. Caught between the police, the coroner and a system that doesn't care, Ridpath isn't making any friends.

When Ben Holdsworth dies alone in a police cell, riots erupt in Manchester. But after a post mortem, the authorities have decided nobody was to blame. DI Ridpath is asked to investigate by the coroner before an inquest, and immediately uncovers some discrepancies in the witness statements. Why was the CCTV not working that night? Where was the custody sergeant, and did he know the victim? Wherever he turns there are lies and gaps. It's a dangerous game and the net is closing... On Ridpath himself.