Showing results by narrator "Stephen Thorne" in All Categories

On a cold morning in Grimsby, Albert Hardcastle wakes up to the first day of his retirement. His days of working in a shop are behind him, and he and his wife, Alice, decide to celebrate by taking the luxury cruise of which they always dreamed. Meanwhile, on the Essex coast, Rear Admiral Sir Benbow Harrington, a retired Royal Navy officer, is trying to assemble a fleet of passenger ships. His newest vessel, the Golden Handshake, is ready for its maiden voyage.

Fascinating, frightening or just plain frustrating? These eight gripping stories show detective work as it really is - and sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction. Hear about the ghostly dream that helped to solve a baffling murder mystery, some clever detectives' tricks that led to the conviction of the 'Laurel and Hardy' jewel thieves, and the crafty blackmailer who nearly got away with the perfect crime.

What would you do if disaster struck? Would you be a hero...or a coward? These are the true stories of people involved in many different kinds of disaster, and how they behaved in life-or-death situations. Hear about a single act of revenge that sacrificed hundreds of lives; how a tragic disaster at sea turned one man into a hero; the train crash that should never have happened and other real-life dramas.

A dead Colonel, a small animal and a deformed old man involve Holmes in ‘one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a man’s brain as he and Watson investigate the mysterious death of Colonel Barclay.

On Christmas Eye, in the year 1907, Mr Batchel, who would have liked to sleep well lay hopelessly wide awake. A brilliant moon shone into his room - he heard the clocks strike the hour of midnight, and having now lost all hope of falling asleep, he rose from his bed and passed into the library, with the intention of reading himself sleepy - if he could.

When the chance to escape the dull life of his orphanage comes, Yanis seizes it. But what does he really know about his new master, or his mission in the frozen, secretive East?

When Mr James Massey moves to the Parish of Hilby and becomes the new tenant of Wood Farm he is soon the centre of attention. Invited to events within the small Norfolk Village, Massey finds himself attending village concerts, high tea at the grange and even dinner at the vicarage. As the residents warm to him so too do the hearts of two women, Helen Smythe and Pollie Freeman.

In "A Case of Identity", Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a substantial income, is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has recently disappeared. Of the fiancé, Mr. Hosmer Angel, Miss Sutherland only knows that he works in an office in Leadenhall Street. All his letters to her are typewritten, even the signature, and he insists that she write back to him through the local Post Office. The climax of the sad liaison comes when Mr. Angel abandons Miss Sutherland at the altar on their wedding day. Holmes reaches a conclusion quite quickly and advises his client to forget Mr. Angel.

Father Brown accompanies his friend Granby to Sir John Musgrave's castle - but when they arrive, they discover something is very wrong . . .