Showing results by narrator "Terry Wale" in All Categories

The year is 1820. The landscape of England is undergoing sweeping change as the country pioneers the steam-driven machine age. The Morlands, too, face change: Cousin Africa returns from St Helena to startle society with her unconventional ideas, and Lucy brings her sons home from their Grand Tour, brimming with ideas for their future. In Manchester, Sophie and Jasper meet fierce opposition to their plans for re-housing the factory hands, while in London, Rosamund enters a bizarre agreement.

Brought to you by Penguin. First published in 1956, The Ascent of Rum Doodle quickly became established as a mountaineering classic. As an outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, many thought it inspired by the 1953 conquest of Everest. But Bowman had drawn on...

Simla 1922, and the summer capital of the British Raj is fizzing with the energy of the Jazz Age. Simla is where detective Joe Sandilands is heading as the guest of Sir George Jardine, the Governor of Bengal. But when Joe’s travelling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the Governor’s car, he finds himself plunged into a murder investigation. Confronted by the mystery of an identical unsolved killing a year before, Joe realizes that Sir George’s hospitality comes at a high price.

The body of a smartly dressed businessman turns up in the yard of Eli Simpson's car workshop. But there's no ID in the pockets, and Eli swears he's never seen the man before. Then a girlfriend turns up with a name and claims the victim told her he was someone's 'right-hand man'. But old fractures and scars suggest a more colourful past.

For 'right-hand man', DCI Bill Slider and his team read 'enforcer'. So who was Mr King? Who was he the muscle for? What did he have to do with the Davy Lane project and the blackmailing of an MP? And, most crucially, what did he know that made someone decide to terminally muscle the muscle?

The bloody revolution in France causes upheaval in the Morland family. Henri-Marie Fitzjames Stuart, bastard offshoot of the Morland family, strives to protect his daughter, Heloise; his mistress, Marie-France; and their son, Morland. To this end, he binds Heloise to a loveless marriage with a Revolutionary, and allies himself with the great Danton.

But in the bloodbath of the guillotine and the fall of Danton, Henri-Marie loses his head and Heloise flees to England.

It's 1926: Joe Sandilands is back from India enjoying the frantic pleasures of Jazz Age London. But post-war gaiety soon wears off when Scotland Yard ask Joe to conduct a swift enquiry. Dame Beatrice Joliffe, a much-respected member of the British establishment, has been bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. It seems that death dogged the footsteps of Dame Beatrice, and Joe finds himself investigating the apparent suicides of three young women who had been close to her.

1772: Although George III reigns over a peaceful England, his colonies in the Americas are claiming independence and a tide of revolutionary fervor is gripping France. Allen Morland and his beloved wife, Jemima, work unstintingly to bring Morland Place back to its former glory. Their seven children often bring them heartache, but they are sustained by their love of each other.

Summer 1381. The Great Revolt has been crushed. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, is preparing for a pilgrimage to St Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury to give thanks for the well-being of his congregation after the violent rebellion. But preparations are disrupted when Athelstan is summoned to the scene of a brutal triple murder.

January, 1381. As guests of the Regent, John of Gaunt, Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston are attending a mystery play performed by the Straw Men, Gaunt’s personal acting troupe, at St John’s Chapel in the Tower of London when the evening is rudely interrupted by sudden, violent death. Who would have the audacity to murder two of Gaunt’s VIP guests and the wherewithal to strategically position two severed heads on the stage without being noticed? The regent orders Athelstan to find out.

If you like Hornblower and Sharpe, you will love this all-action nautical page-turner from much loved author G.S.Beard. You'll feel as if you are in the midst of the action! 'If you like sea stories, you will enjoy this, and even if you think you don't but enjoy things like Sharpe, it might just...

October 1381. Brother Athelstan is summoned to the church of St Benet’s in Queenhithe to investigate the murder of a priest. Parson Reynaud has been found stabbed to death inside his own locked church. Other disturbing discoveries include an empty coffin and a ransacked money chest. Who would commit murder inside a holy church? Who would spirit away a corpse the night before the funeral - and who would be brave enough to steal treasure belonging to the most feared gang leader in London?

December, 1380. When the corpse of Sir Robert Kilverby is discovered in a locked room, Brother Athelstan accompanies the King’s coronor to investigate. For the late Sir Robert had in his possession a sacred bloodstone which he was planning to donate to the Abbey of St Fulcher-on-Thames.

As the century draws to a close, Jemima Morland wearily acknowledges that her life is also nearing its end, but she has scant peace as her unpredictable children behave ever more incomprehensibly: James's marriage to Mary Ann is closer to falling apart; Lucy's marriage of convenience is in the balance - her affair with Lieutenant Watson an open scandal; Mary bears a daughter on board her husband's ship during the battle of the Nile; and William supports a mistress whose marriage cannot be dissolved.

February 1381. A ruthless killer known as the Ignifer - Fire Bringer - is rampaging through London. He appears to be targeting all those involved in the recent trial and conviction of the beautiful Lady Isolda Beaumont, burned at the stake for the murder of her husband. As the late Sir Walter Beaumont was a close friend of the Regent, John of Gaunt orders Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan to investigate. In the dead man’s possession was a copy of the mysterious Book of Fires, containing the secret formula of a devastating weapon....

It is 1833. The industrial age is sweeping through England, and the Stephensons are planning the greatest engineering scheme ever undertaken: a railway line from Liverpool to London. At Morland Place, Nicholas had hoped that his brother, Benedict, had been banished forever, but railway fever has brought Benedict back to Yorkshire as an engineer on the Leeds & Selby line. It is a lonely life and he fears he will never be wealthy enough to marry his new love, Miss Fleetham.

When Melanie Hunter goes missing it is completely out of character for the polite, friendly palaeontologist, and the men in her life come under suspicion. And there’s plenty to suspect: lies, half-truths, deceptions.... It soon becomes clear that there are secrets in Melanie’s past, and pain she tried to hide from the world. Bill Slider and his team investigate, and if they are to succeed then they will need to find the answer to two questions: Who loved Melanie? And who loved her too much?

May 1381.The Great Revolt draws ever nearer. The Upright Men openly roam the streets of London, waiting for the violence to begin. Their mysterious envoy, the Herald of Hell, appears at night, terrifying those who oppose them. But who is he? When his chancery clerk is found hanged in a notorious Southwark brothel, Brother Athelstan is summoned to investigate. In the dead man's possession was a manuscript containing a great secret which he had been striving to decipher. Can he crack the code before the Great Revolt begins?

February 1381. London lies frozen in the grip of one of the bitterest winters on record. The ever-rising taxes demanded by the Regent, John of Gaunt, are causing increasing resentment among the city's poor. When the seething unrest boils over into a bloody massacre at a splendid Southwark tavern, in which nine people, including Gaunt's tax collectors, their military escort and the prostitutes entertaining them, are brutally murdered, the furious Regent orders Brother Athelstan to get to the bottom of the matter.

June 1381. The rebel armies are massed outside London, determined to overturn both crown and church. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, has been summoned to the monastery at Blackfriars, tasked with solving the murder of his fellow priest, Brother Alberic. Athelstan would rather be protecting his parishioners at St Erconwald's. Instead, he finds himself investigating a royal murder whilst the rebel leaders plot the present king's destruction. What does the fate of the King's great-grandfather, Edward II, have to do with the murder of Brother Alberic more than 50 years later?

Antiques expert Rowland Egerton, the darling of daytime TV, has been stabbed to death in his luxurious West London home. The press are going to be all over this one like a nasty rash: the pressure's on Slider for a result, and soon. Egerton's partner, the bulky, granite-faced John Lavender, found the body; did he also do the deed? Or was it a burglary gone wrong? A missing Faberge box and Impressionist painting point that way. But as Slider and his team investigate, none of the facts seem to fit.