Showing results by narrator "Robert Ian Mackenzie" in All Categories

The year is 2012, and China, India, and the United States are waging an infowar for economic domination. With innocent gamers mere pawns in the hands of electronic intelligence agencies, programmer Jack Reed is tasked with ferreting out the plot of those who would gladly trade global turmoil for personal gain.

In the words of Alexander McCall Smith: "You feel the rocking of the train, you hear the sound of its wheels on the rails; you are in the world rather than suspended somewhere above it. And sometimes there are conversations to be had, which is what the overarching story in this collection is all about. It is a simple device: people brought together entertain one another with tales of what happened to them on trains. It takes place on a journey I frequently make myself and know well, the journey between Edinburgh and London. It is best read on a train, preferably that one."

The town of Sarlat is staging a reenactment of its liberation from the British in the Hundred Years’ War when the play’s French hero, Brice Kerquelin, is stabbed and feared fatally wounded. Is it an unfortunate prop malfunction—or something more sinister? The stricken man happens to be number two in the French intelligence service, in line for the top job. Bruno is tasked with the safety of the victim’s daughter Claire, as well as her father's old Silicon Valley buddies, ostensibly in town for a reunion.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican - famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends, J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugh Dyson - and how Lewis delivered his wartime talks to a traumatized British nation in the midst of an all-out war for survival.

Harry Steen, a businessman travelling in Mexico, ducks into an old bookstore to escape a frightening deluge. Inside, he makes a serendipitous discovery: a mid-19th-century account of a sinister storm cloud that plagued an isolated Scottish village and caused many gruesome and unexplainable deaths. Harry knows the village well - it was there that he met the woman whose love and betrayal have haunted him every day since. Presented with this astonishing record, Harry resolves to seek out the ghosts of his past.

In Universal Man noted biographer and historian Richard Davenport-Hines revives our understanding of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), the 20th century's most charismatic and revolutionary economist.

Philip Palmer, the best-selling author of Hell Ship, crafts science fiction works that have earned him a reputation as one of the best in the business. In Artemis, con artist and killer Artemis McIvor took the collapse of the galactic government as the opportunity to go on a crime spree to end all crime sprees. But when the law finally catches up to her, she’s given a choice: spend the rest of her life cooling her heels in prison or accept a deadly mission to save all of humanity.

Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands and soldiers pounding at the door. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north. Meanwhile, Holmes needs the wisdom of his wife, whom he discovers has gone missing. As Holmes searches and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it’s too late.

It's 1885. Anne Stanbury wakes up in a strange bed, having been kidnapped from her home. As the panic settles in, she realizes she has been committed to a lunatic asylum, deemed insane and therefore unfit to stand trial for an unspeakable crime. But all is not as it seems.

A masterpiece of the sexual gothic, this is the story of Andrew Halfnight, whose life, part dream, part nightmare, begins with a mother's tragic choice and ends with a lover's embrace. In between he experiences tempests at sea, on land and in the mind; and relatives who kill for love and lovers who sacrifice their bodies; as all the while he moves ever closer to the central mystery of his and all existence.

Rachel, the mother of the aging professor Thomas Vanderlinden, shared her life with two men. Both went by the name of Rowland Vanderlinden. The first husband went abroad and never returned. The second, whom Rachel also unquestioningly accepted as her husband, was a mystery. In an attempt to understand his mother's adventurous decisions regarding love and marriage, Thomas sets out on a journey to the far reaches of the Pacific to find the first Rowland, and his real father. As the mystery of the two Rowlands unfolds throughout the novel, so too does a fascinating portrait.

Arthur Hart-Synnot, a third-generation British officer, was sent to Japan in 1904 to learn the language of Britain's newest ally. Masa Suzuki, a beautiful Japanese woman scorned because of an early divorce, worked at the Tokyo Officers' Club. The two fell immediately in love and conceived a son before Arthur was whisked away by the military during World War I. Though Arthur would only see Masa little, he supported his Japanese family and kept alive the hope that he and Masa could live together blissfully.

Award-winning author Laurie R. King writes mysteries featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell. In this short story, King explores their very first meeting... Sherlock Holmes is fending off a particularly dark mood as he roams the Sussex Downs, in search of wild bees.

Orphaned during World War II, Roger MacKenzie Wakefield believed that his mother died during the London Blitz, and that his father, an RAF pilot, was killed in combat. But this may not be the whole story.

Autumn, 1707. Old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are protesting the new Union with England. As the French prepare an invasion to bring the exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne, the streets of Edinburgh are filled with discontent. To calm the situation, Queen Anne’s commissioners are settling the losses and wages owed to those Scots involved in the disastrous Darien expedition eight years earlier.

Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop but never anything quite like this: an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story - complete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.

Ever since Angus was a wee baby monster, living below the surface of Loch Ness, his parents tried to teach him to be a proper monster. But as Angus grows bigger, he gets sloppy. "Puggy-nit" shells (peanuts) are piling up; his "grottie" (dirty) laundry is in a heap; "tatties" (potatoes) litter the floor. It's a mountain of a mess! And as Angus's trash heap grows, pushing him away from the comforts of home, a surprising Loch Ness sighting of his own awaits on the surface of the lake....

Best-selling author Jodi Picoult and her teenage daughter present their first-ever novel for teens, filled with romance, adventure and humour.

Delilah knows it's weird, but she can't stop reading her favourite fairytale. Other girls her age are dating. But then, other girls are popular. Delilah loves the comfort of the happy ending and knowing there will be no surprises. Until she gets the biggest surprise of her life....

In nine short stories and one brand-new, never-before-heard Sherlock Holmes mystery, Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand, starting with England's declaration of war in 1914. As told in Mary Russell's teenage diaries, the whip-smart girl investigates familial mysteries, tracks German spies through San Francisco and generally delights with her extraordinary mind - until an unimaginable tragedy strikes.