Showing results by narrator "Michael Tudor Barnes" in All Categories

Crete, May 1941. In the face of a German invasion, Sergeant Jack Tanner is embroiled in a deadly game of survival that will test his resolve more than ever before. Not only has he fallen out with his commander but he has mortally offended Alopex, a powerful local chieftain. As if that wasn't enough, Tanner and the rest of his battalion are caught in vicious close-quarter fighting against crack German paratroopers.

The Gropes are an old English family based in Northumberland, separated from the rest of society and as eccentric as they come. It is a line dominated by strong-willed and oversexed women, determined to produce more female heirs regardless of whether their desired partners are willing.... At the dawn of the new millennium, timid and gormless teenager Esmond is abducted and lured to Grope Hall by a descendant of the Gropes.

1326: Queen Isabella refuses to leave France and humiliates her husband, King Edward II, by flaunting her adulterous relationship with the arch-traitor Sir Roger Mortimer. The King is furious when he hears she has also betrothed their son to the daughter of the French Count of Hainault, and all England fears invasion. As news of an invasion fleet is received, the King’s knights, including Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, are commanded to London to protect the King and his realm.

After the British military lose an officer to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, a desperate race begins to find his killers. Little do the assailants know that the precious information they have stolen could bring down the entire network of Western intelligence in the Mid-East. But then one of them is captured by US troops and flown to the States for interrogation. And so begins a nail-biting, claustrophobic and explosive thriller that will ultimately lead British operative John Stratton to the Styx penitentiary, America's undersea prison.

Cold-blooded murder has transformed Simon Puttock's official obligation into something horrid, and he will need the able assistance of his friend, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, to draw a criminal out. A former Knight Templar, Sir Baldwin knows much of duty and servitude and of evil freely indulged in the name of godliness or greed. Now, justice must be served, even if their search exposes extortion, foul corruption, rule by fear, and killers willing, even eager, to shed more blood.

It is 1588, and King Philip of Spain has assembled a great fleet and army to crush the English and end Queen Elizabeth's reign.

One man who has inside knowledge of this event is the young Henry Gresham. His good looks, youth, and wealth are the envy of some at court, so his position as spy for Walsingham further endangers his life.

In the dark days of King James I, a man must know his enemies to survive. To Henry Gresham, gentleman, scholar, courtier, and spy, William Shadwell is invaluable. A thief, informer, double-dealer, and pimp, he may not be the most moral of men, but he is one of Gresham's best sources. When Shadwell is murdered, Gresham's enquiries uncover a plot so audacious it is scarcely believable.

1325: England is a hotbed of paranoia under the reign of the unpredictable Edward II and his lover, Sir Hugh le Despenser. When the queen’s lady-in-waiting is slaughtered and a man’s body, hideously mutilated, is discovered behind the throne, the king demands to be avenged. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, an experienced investigator of murders, is appointed to track down the killer, aided by his friend, Simon Puttock. In an age of corruption, when the king’s friends can use torture, blackmail and murder to promote their ends, a rural knight and bailiff must fight to stay alive.

In these two series, set on selected dates in January 1895 and December 1896, we follow the day-to-day shenanigans of Bridgford station master Joe Braddock and his staff, along with a motley crew of passengers and passers-by. Each episode is a self-contained drama, as well as telling the ongoing story of the crises and challenges tackled by the team, and their rivalries, enmities, friendships and burgeoning romances.

Forty years ago, Exeter's Cathedral Close was the scene of a vicious ambush. Afterwards, the bodies left lying in their blood bore witness to the conflicts tearing at the heart of the cathedral itself. Today, in 1323, murder is again polluting the Cathedral Close - but this killer is not so easily caught. The victim, Henry Potell, was feared and hated; he held secrets that some wished to keep hidden....

When King Edward II is informed that his wife, Queen Isabella, has defied him and remained in France with their son, he flies into a rage. It is Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock who have broken the news to him and are now no longer in the king’s favour. They return to their homes in Devon, but they find that outlaws hold sway in the land. Sir Robert, a knight from the King’s household, has turned outlaw from his castle near Crediton. When a pair of clerics are found murdered, Baldwin and Simon are asked to investigate.

Exeter, 1323. A strange man is entering people’s houses at night, causing panic amongst householders. Although many had thought him harmless, now he seems to have committed murder. A man lies dead in his own home, slaughtered merely for trying to protect his children, and the folk of Exeter want this menace caught and hanged. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill suspects that the solution isn’t that simple.

After leading a raid in Afghanistan, elite operative John Stratton is contacted by an old friend in military intelligence with a curious message about being hunted by an assassin. When the officer vanishes, Stratton gets drawn into a desperate race to secure a missing nuclear warhead, stolen from the Pakistan military. Against an unknown enemy, he conducts a terrifying search for the bomb - from a Taliban hideout a few miles outside Bagram Air Base to the crowded streets of Manhattan.

The house was built in the Old Queen's time: built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home. It survived many eras, many reigns: it saw the passing of Cromwell and the Civil War. It became rich with an Indian Nabob and poor with a 20th century innkeeper. It saw wars, and lovers, and death. Children were born there, both heirs and bastards. It had ghosts and legends and a history that grew stranger with every generation.

On 3 May 1961, after a trial conducted largely in secret, a man named George Blake was sentenced to an unprecedented 42 years in jail. By his own confession he was a Soviet spy, but the reasons for such a severe punishment were never revealed. To the public, Blake was simply the greatest traitor of the Cold War. Yet his story touches not only the depths of treachery, but also the heights of heroism.

It is mid-winter, 1943. Britain is gripped by intense cold and in the darkest days of the war. There is no escape from the conflict - it has snaked into every part of everyone's lives. RAF officer Paget is heading home for Christmas on a train slowly dragging itself west, laden with the tanks and guns that will be taken across the Channel when the invasion begins. Sergeant Harris sits in a freezing hut on Salisbury Plain, wishing he can stop teaching green troops and see some real action.

1938: As Hitler sets his sights on the Sudetenland, not everyone in Britain is willing to appease him. Convinced that the fürher’s land hunger is insatiable, the head of the SIS recruits Cal Jardine to help him prove that Czechoslovakia is threatened with invasion. Before heading undercover to Prague, however, Jardine must first extricate himself from France, where his attempts to smuggle guns to Spain have been held up by a group of fanatical fascists. Finally arriving in Czechoslovakia, working undercover for the SIS proves no less dangerous.

Were things really better in the good old days? Gilda O'Neill's powerful exploration of the teeming underbelly that was to be found in the fog-bound streets, rat-infested slums, common lodging houses, boozers, penny gaffs, and brothels in the heart of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen brings to life the real working-class London of Victoria's reign.

One of the best-loved composers of all time, Dvorák rose from rural origins to become not only a great but an influential composer. The first composer to put his native Bohemia on the musical map of the world, he was invited to do the same for America. One result was the famous "New World" Symphony, which made him a household name across the globe. Writing music of irresistible color, lilt and peasant vitality, he was also a melodist-in-a-million. This portrait-in-sound follows a lovable and in many ways a very simple, man from hay cart to imperial palace, from tragic loss to heart-warming joy, to pigeon-raising and world celebrity.

This heart-warming account of veterinary life traces Ivor Smith's early days as a student at university through setting up his own practice in the Cotswolds, recounting a memorable 40 years in the profession. Following in the Herriot tradition of veterinary humour, Ivor's memories of life as a vet in a very mixed practice include hilarious incidents, colourful local characters and engaging patients.