Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley" in All Categories

Arnold Landon finds himself drawn into another bitter dispute over land—in which a defenseless old woman pays the ultimate price. To the casual observer, Penbrook Farm might seem like a ramshackle hovel, buried deep in the woods of Northumberland. But to fragile old Sarah Ellis, it’s home. And the developers can have the place over her dead body. Of course, no one ever expected it to come to that.

A Second Chance at Eden, by Peter F. Hamilton, the best-selling master of space opera, is a collection containing a novella and six short stories set in the Confederation Universe of the Night's Dawn trilogy. Sonnie's Edge appears within this collection, featured as part of the Love, Death + Robots series on Netflix.

In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and you-can't-say-that. The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie'.

A haughty professor comes calling on Arnold Landon for research assistance. But he’s overlooked an important fact. Landon already has a job at the council—along with a raft of superiors who’d rather he focused on the dispute at hand. Namely, who is the rightful owner of the Kilgour Estates? And the opulent manor house in the grounds? Dashing rake Patrick Yates insists it’s all his. But a black sheep in the family returns to claim otherwise. Who is telling the truth?

Andrews is found dead in his own living room. His head blown to bloody smithereens. Who will finish what the dead man started? The publisher turns to Arnold Landon. And why wouldn’t he pick up the mantle? Everyone tells him it’s safe. The police have their man for Andrews’ killing. But the closer Landon gets to Andrews’ checkered past, the less certain he becomes. Could the true killer be out there still? Watching, waiting for his chance to strike again …

His daily discontent is nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. In the popular imagination, he observes, deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic, but for the deaf person himself it is no joke. It is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a young woman whose wayward and unpredictable behavior threatens to destabilize his life completely.

Cambridge, October 1933. Inside the old All Hallows Church on All Hallows' Eve, Dr. Adelaide Hartest witnesses the final moments of a dying stranger. Despite the dagger plunged into the stranger's chest and his last-minute confession, the death is ruled a suicide. The victim, it is revealed, is known to Scotland Yard, and Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands is sent up from London to investigate.

Secret agent Mr. Adolph Verloc operates from a seedy Soho shop, where he deals in pornography and espionage. Idle, treacherous, and self-righteous, he makes the life of his wife, Winnie, one of silent misery. When Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory, his plans go terribly awry, and his family has to deal with the tragic repercussions of his actions. Joseph Conrad's dark satire on English society, while rooted in the Edwardian period, remains strikingly contemporary.

Questions of what happens after death were vital in Shakespeare's time, as it is today. And, like today, the answers were by no means universally agreed upon. Exploring how particular texts and characters answer these questions, Shakespeare and the Afterlife showcases the vitality and originality of the author's language and thinking. We encounter characters with very personal visions of what awaits them after death, and these visions reveal new insights into these individuals' motivations and concerns as they navigate the world of the living.

Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos...The king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, rules as Protector. Radical Protestants are conducting all-out war on the old religion, stirring discontent among the people. The Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages, and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings together reminiscing. Until an unexpected violent attack brings everything they thought they knew into question.

The year is 2024, and the residents of the Tower, a virus-proof apartment building, live in a state of permanent lockdown. The building is controlled by James, who keeps the residents safe but incarcerated. Behind bricked-up front doors, their every need is serviced; they are pampered but remain prisoners. This suits Eugene just fine. Ravaged by the traumas of his past, the agoraphobic ex-detective has no intention of ever setting foot outside again.

A sinking British ship. Her crew and her passengers—men and women alike—are ruthlessly murdered at the hands of a French privateer. This is the nightmare Ramage and the crew of the Calypso stumble upon while engaged in a sweep for freebooters in the waters off Jamaica. Supported by his men in a thirst for righteous vengeance, Ramage sets sail to bring the murderers to justice.

Ramage, finally reunited with his beloved Sarah, hopes to spend at least a few quiet weeks with her. Instead, he is summoned by Admiral Nelson himself. His orders: Ramage is to join Nelson's fleet blockading the combined French and Spanish navies in the port of Cadiz. But Nelson's plan is not merely to blockade the enemy's fleet. He intends to confront it head-on in the biggest naval battle the world has ever seen.

Post Captain Ramage is prowling the Tuscan coast and far from English aid when he encounters a daunting French invasion fleet. As the enemy gathers strength, Ramage must decide how to thwart its actions with only the frigate Calypso and a pair of bomb ketches.

Naomi Stride was a wealthy woman, and her death has left several people richer - none more so than her 26-year-old son Theo, with whom she had long had bitter differences over money. She was also a controversial woman, a writer whose novels had been banned in South Africa. But was it for money, politics, or some other unknown reason that she was killed? And why was her naked corpse strewn with flowers and herbs? These are the questions South African Lieutenant Kramer and his partner must answer.

Lieutenant Kramer and Sergeant Zondi have their hands full. On the same day that an adult entertainer is found strangled to death in her dressing room, her pet python wrapped dead around her neck, beloved candy shop owner "Lucky" Siyayo is shot at his counter in a botched robbery. The detective duo quickly realize neither death is as simple as it appears.

Oscar Hopkins, the hydrophobic, noisy-kneed son of a preacher, renounces his father's stern religion in favour of the Anglican Church. Lucinda Leplastrier, a frizzy-haired heiress, impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. When the two finally meet, on board a ship to New South Wales, Australia, they are bound by their affinity for gambling and risk, their loneliness and their awkwardly blossoming mutual affection.

Admiralty spies are hunting for British officers and allies trapped on the mainland, among them Ramage's first love, Gianna, the marchesa di Volterra. Ramage returns to the Tuscan coast, where Bonaparte holds a group of hostages for an unknown fate.

On a sharp winter's morning, a man turns his back on prison. This is the story of Joseph, who killed his wife, Zoe. Of their three children who witnessed the event. Of Zoe's parents, Hannah and Frederick, who are bringing up the children and can't forgive or understand Joseph. They slowly adjust to life without Zoe, until the day Joseph is released from prison...