Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.

The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales? Dismissed as 'Mrs Sherlock Holmes' or amateurish Miss Marples, mocked as private dicks or honey trappers, they have been investigating crime since the mid-nineteenth century - everything from theft and fraud to romance scams and murder. In Private Inquiries, Caitlin Davies traces the history of the UK's female investigators.

Before leaving prison, having served 12 years, Harper Kane makes a promise - to find out what happened to an inmate’s missing teenage daughter. But first, she must secure a well-paid job and a place of her own to take back custody of her son. What she falls into is a frightening discovery of human trafficking. Forced to make an inconceivable decision, Harper will use everything she has learned inside to protect her family, even if that means resorting to murder.

1964 - London. Dolly Vincent is born to an East End gangster but is sent away for her own protection. Mad Mick is hell-bent on his revenge and will stop at nothing to kill her. Estranged from her family, she becomes a successful barrister, but after defending a young Italian man she finds herself caught up in a secret held by a high court judge. Tortured and left for dead, she flees London and heads to New York. Only the Vincents know where she is...but even they don't know the truth.

‘Oh my goodness - another girl, Mrs Swain!' Clara's normal iron composure broke, and she screamed, ‘No! That's not the bloody deal!' And that was how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world. When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family's past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna's early life. What she unearths is a tale of five feisty redheads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars.

Bermondsey , London. With an absent father and a penniless mother, Cyril Reardon is determined to be the man of the house. As young as eight, Cyril is a charmer, a planner, and a risk-taker. A rare trip to the country, shows Cyril a completely different world and it opens his eyes to how the other half lives. A young man wants Cyril shot dead but receives a nasty scar and a few injuries that set him on a path of revenge.

When Harper Kane is ready to push her grief aside and take down Teddy Ryder, she is suddenly faced with more shocking news. Working undercover in the field of human trafficking has its risks and Charley, Harper's sister, is missing. Her operations manager maintains she has been murdered. However, despite seeing a photo of two charred bodies and a set of handcuffs covered in blood, Harper still believes that her sister is alive. But Harper can't trust the police, so who can she trust?

Following the death of her husband, Desiree is left with two clubs. However, while her family are desperate to get ownership signed over to them, Desiree has other plans that involve Harper Kane. It's only been a year since Harper had to endure horrific torture at the hands of the Russian traffickers, but it didn't break her; it only made her tougher. And now the one person she believed she could trust has shockingly become the enemy. When Harper meets Desiree Deacon, she discovers that there is so much more to her family than just nightclubs.

The year is 1915, and the war is raging on.... The war was not 'over by Christmas' after all, and as 1915 begins, the Hunters begin to settle into wartime life. Diana, the eldest Hunter daughter, sees her fiance off to the front but doesn't expect such coldness from her future mother-in-law. David's battalion is almost ready to be sent to the front, but how will Beattie's fragile peace of mind endure?

Acapulco, 1974: Rina Walker is on assignment. Just another quick, clean kill. She wakes to discover her employer's severed head on her bedside table and a man with an AK-47 coming through the door of her hotel room. She needs all her skills to neutralise her attacker and escape. After a car chase, she is captured by a Mexican drug boss who exploits her radiant beauty and ruthless expertise to eliminate an inconvenient member of the government.

A gripping thriller that will shock you to the core. Controlled all her life by her religious mother, 15-year-old Kelly Raven commits the ultimate sin. She soon discovers that running away to the cold, frightening streets of London is less harsh than her previous life. A drug dealer, two fraudsters, and a prostitute are her new family now, and she becomes the woman she was destined to be. Little does she know that Eddie Raven is coming for her, but she is no sweet four-year-old child, and he is certainly no doting father.

After serving eight years inside for armed robbery, Mitchell Swan comes home to find his family in chaos and his violent father-in-law to blame. Within hours, he moves out, taking only his middle son and leaving his other two children, Jordan and Sonny, to be dragged up by their mother. Growing up in the same street but in reality worlds apart, Eden’s life is vastly different from the Swan brothers. She endures the unimaginable at the hands of Gabriel, her father - a Jehovah’s Witness elder. But no one believes her.

London, 1875. Taking one last look around her little room in Covent Garden, Nettie Carroll couldn’t believe she wouldn’t even be able to say good-bye to her friends. Her father had trusted the wrong man, and now they would have to go on the run. Once again.

Holed up in prison, Mike Regan is offered a deal - his freedom in exchange for his firm taking down the gang that is supplying a new dangerous drug that has hit the streets. What starts as a game soon becomes a shocking revelation with devastating consequences. Meanwhile, Mike’s fiancé, Zara Ezra, has her own firm to run. But when the so-called Governor is out to take her down, she has her own decision to make - either fight, run, or write her own rule book....

Clinging tightly to the penny in her palm, Flora’s fortune was about to change… Flora is forever grateful for the day the Stewart family rescued her from her life of poverty on London’s streets. Adopted as one of their own, she shed her rags and was finally given a place to call home. When a twist of fate calls her back to the cobbles, Flora’s new life is torn apart. Flora must make her own way if she is ever to find where she truly belongs…

Georgie Deacon thinks nothing of it when a gang of girls led by Yasmin, a member of the notorious Marx family, knock at her door and threaten to hurt her daughter—that is until her daughter doesn't return home. Detective Clark Kims ignores Georgie's plea to have the gang of girls brought in for questioning. He insists it is the work of the Kent serial killer, until Georgie realizes that the detective's daughter is part of the gang.

Having spent her life watching her father run his East London firm, Zara Ezra has learnt a thing or two about being a gangster, and she’s ready to take over when the time comes. Mike Regan, a blast from Zara’s past, is the head of his own firm, but when his son is kidnapped in the middle of a gangland feud, Mike has no choice but to accept help from the Ezras to get his little boy back alive. With a rival firm playing increasingly dirty, murder moves to the top of the agenda and Zara has some big choices to make.

Hard live. Hard Lessons. It's murder on the streets. When a prostitute's body is found lifeless, mutilated and brutally raped, DCI Annie Carr has never seen anything like it and never wants to again. Kate Burrows, retired DCI now consultant, has plenty of experience when it comes to murder - after all she caught the Grantley Ripper and broke the biggest pedophile ring in the South East. She is determined to help put the killer behind bars.

Diana Davis has been head of the family business since the death of her husband, an infamous bank robber. She's a woman in a man's world, but no one messes with her. Her only son, Angus, is a natural born villain, but he needs to earn Diana's trust before she'll allow him into the business. Once he's proved he has the brains to run their clubs in Marbella, he is given what he's always wanted. It's the beginning of a reign of terror that knows no bounds.

The heir to Martina Cole’s crown with a story of murder, the underworld, violence and treachery. The Butlers are the kings of the East End. Vinny and Roy Butler are the apple of their mum’s eye. Queenie knows they can play dirty, but when it comes to family they look after business and make her proud. Nothing and no one can bring them down. Brotherly love. But Vinny seems to have crossed the wrong person, and his cards are marked. And with the brothers joined at the hip, Roy may just be in the firing line too…