Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

The Steampunk Pirates jump at the chance to earn a handsome reward in return for doing some snooping. But when they find themselves sandwiched between the Dread Captain Inky beard and a spider on the attack, it's time to beat a retreat. Can they escape without a scrape, or have the robotic rebels ticked their last?

The Steampunk Pirates get a taste of their own medicine when their ship is raided by a sea monster that’s greedy for gold. But when the rusty robots race to get their treasure back, they sail straight into a trap. Can they dodge the creature's twisting tentacles or will they be next on the monster’s menu?

1936. Devastated by the death of her brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. 1979. Emma's grandson, Phil, dreams of a tour of Europe, but is nowhere near being able to fund it. So when his beloved grandmother determines to make one last trip to the places she lived, and to try to solve a mystery that has haunted her since the war, he jumps at the chance to accompany her.

A sadistic practical joker is haunting the popular music halls of London, interfering with the actors and interrupting their acts by orchestrating humiliating disasters that take place in view of the audience. A trapeze artist misses her timing when the trapeze ropes are shortened. Mustard has been applied to a sword swallower's blade. A singer's costume has been rigged. The girl in a magician's box is trapped. Then the mischief escalates to murder. Or was murder intended all along?

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

Few sporting records capture the imagination quite like that of the highest individual score in Test cricket. It is the blue riband record of batting achievement, the ultimate statement of stamina and skill. From Charles Bannerman, who scored 165 for Australia against England in the inaugural Test match in 1877, to Brian Lara, who made 400 not out for West Indies against England in 2004, the record has changed hands 10 times.

Small businesses and start-ups face their own challenges, and Steve Coulson has been there, made the mistakes and found a way to triumph. His straightforward, no-nonsense advice outlines a path to success if you want to grow your business to something bigger and more successful than you could ever have believed possible.

"Eight Figure Entrepreneur" provides the tools to rapidly strengthen and grow your business while working less. From focussing on personal development and creating a workplace culture that attracts the best to understanding the pillars of growth and maximising capacity while adapting to the market, it's all underpinned by discovering who you are and what you truly stand for.

London, 1888. Though the beautiful Miriam Cromer has confessed to the murder of her husband’s assistant, she is still confident of her acquittal. But then, she is sentenced to hang. She blames her husband, but he has an alibi. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray must discover what really happened at Park Lodge on 12th March, 1888, and quickly.

London, 1889: After Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat became a Victorian best seller, rowing on the Thames was the great craze of 1889. When an elementary school teacher in training takes a midnight swim in the Thames and witnesses a body being dumped, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackerey are called to investigate. They uncover strange parallels with the enormously popular Victorian novel, but nobody will take them seriously. Following their instincts, they stick doggedly to the trail, which leads upstream to Oxford.

The spiritualist movement has captivated a segment of society: manifestations, the occult, and “sensitives” are in vogue. But the séance sites seem to be targeted for burglaries. Then, while Cribb is on the case, someone murders the medium. There was a great vogue for table-turning and getting in touch with the dead in Victorian times, and this lent itself to fraud, at the very least. It seemed inevitable that Cribb and Thackeray should take part in a séance at some stage. They come to it indirectly, following an art theft.

Forbidden in Victorian England, the grim and violent world of bare-knuckle fighting has gone underground. So when a headless body is found floating in the Thames, his hands "pickled" for fighting, Sergeant Cribb knows he is facing a challenge. Desperate for information, they select the young constable Henry Jago to infiltrate the gang, subjecting him to a rigorous program of purging, pickling, and training. Cribb is certain that the losing fighters are being killed, or worse, so getting Jago out just in time is crucial....

As the world moves from the industrial era to the digital age, power is shifting and fragmenting. Power is no longer about might and ownership; power in a digital world is about access. Existing businesses need to understand this shift and position themselves to survive and thrive in an environment where entrepreneurs and start-ups enabled by access to technology are genuine threats.

In Praise of Famous Horses is an A-Z companion to perhaps the most loved of all domesticated animals. The book's entries include a wealth of unexpected, fascinating and serendipitous information, from horse-slang phrases to horses in British pub signs and from the horse in advertising to the horse as a food item. Themes such as the horse in warfare and the horse in folklore abound.

'The Editor of Wisden is an important personage. It is he who decides the policy of the Cricketers’ Bible and cricketers the world over look to him to give a lead on all controversial problems. His is, therefore, no easy task, but Wisden has been fortunate in its editors.' That was written in 1933, and it is still true. The heart of the Almanack is the section entitled "Notes by the Editor". The editor's opinions can change careers, laws - indeed every part of the game.

Glasgow, 1898. A man is found stabbed to death in a tenement block. Juan Camerón, photographer-cum-sleuth, is drafted in in the hope he can bring to light what the eye may overlook. Yet Juan has problems of his own. Following the tragic death of his father in Cuba some months before, the man’s legacy is threatened by a plagiarism suit from a mysterious señora, and Juan’s hoped-for happiness with his fiancée, Jane, might be over before it’s even begun - even more so when a visiting professor is murdered and Jane is witnessed fleeing the scene.

A killer is targeting former students of the Bloomsbury Academy of Law. The victims - all female - are gruesomely butchered according to a pattern corresponding with the legal syllabus. Even more disconcerting are riddles sent by the killer to investigating officer, Chief Inspector Jake Carver, offering clues as to who is next and where they will die.

Detective Jake Porter’s life was ripped apart by the hit-and-run driver that killed his wife. The life he has been building up piece by piece is rocked by the discovery of new evidence. At the same time, he has a volatile case to juggle. Ross Henderson was a Vlogger with over 10 million followers rallying against the growing tide of the far-right. As his audience tuned in to listen to Henderson tear apart more anti-immigrant vitriol, they watched in horror as he was brutally murdered during a live broadcast.

Jennifer Hughes doesn’t have an extraordinary life, but that doesn’t matter - she loves her family and enjoys her job as a teacher. In her eyes, her unextraordinary life is utterly perfect. But then, in the blink of an eye, Jennifer finds herself cut off from everything she knew and loved, confined to a strange new world and forced to watch from a distance as her family and friends pick up the pieces. Can Jennifer hold her perfect life together, even though she’s not living it herself?

Three powerful Norman lords and a Saxon thegn watch their horses competing in a race near Woodstock. When one of the riders is murdered during the race, suspicion falls on the Saxon. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are guests at Oxford Castle while they deliberate on land disputes in the area. Caught up in the murder investigation, they feel that a man has been wrongly accused and, in trying to save him from execution, get themselves immersed in a sea of malice, treachery, lust and simmering hostility.