Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

At the height of World War II the people of Leningrad endured a bitter 900-day siege. Prit Buttar tells the story of how the siege was finally broken. The Red Army had suffered multiple setbacks in the preceding two years but achieved a partial success by breaking the blockage in early 1943. However, this was followed by further failed attempts to lift the siege completely. This compelling history uses original Russian source material to vividly describe the deprivations visited upon those trapped. But it also details the tactical successes and strategic failures of both sides.

Yes! Old Scrooge is dead, to begin with.... In this romance sequel to Charles Dickens' beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge dies suddenly just days before Christmas. Tiny Tim, now a young man who lost his sweetheart love, Becky, battles anger and lost faith with the new loss of his best friend. Scrooge’s ghost returns to to teach Tim a much needed lesson about faith...and the real meaning of Christmas!

"All the problems I know about are family ones." A frightened child approaches Roman informer Falco, pleading for help. Nobody believes Gaia's story that a relation wants to kill her--and neither does he. Beset by his own family troubles, by his new responsibilities as procurator of the sacred poultry, and by the continuing search for a new partner, Falco turns her away. Immediately he regrets it. Gaia has been selected as the new Vestal Virgin, and when she disappears Falco is officially asked to investigate.

From best-selling author Lyn Andrews comes a compelling historical epic set at the endlessly fascinating Tudor court about the most infamous woman of the age - Anne Boleyn - and the man who loved her before she became queen. From the moment Henry Percy, future Earl of Northumberland, glimpses the beautiful Anne Boleyn he is captivated and quickly proposes marriage. Anne has been taught to use her charms to her advantage and to secure her family's position of power at court. She sees that Henry Percy's affection is sincere and agrees to marry him.

Rats are always bigger than you expect.' Falco, ancient Rome's hangdog investigator, hates sharing a cell with a rodent - though being bailed by his old mother is almost as embarrassing. His high-born girlfriend can't decide if she wants him, and Titus Caesar's reward for past services is a wet fish. Hoping for a better life, or at least a better apartment, he takes on new clients. On the elegant slopes of the Pincian Hill, three nouveau riche freedmen with two flashy wives are under siege by a clever redhead.

Strangefields Farm is notorious for its sinister history ever since serial killer Jackson Temples lured young women to the premises, and the girls never left alive. Now, decades later, Strangefields is being transformed into a holiday village, but the developer's hopes of its dark past being forgotten are ruined when a skull is found on the site. Police suspect it belongs to one of Temples' victims, and when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples' crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears a copycat killer could be at large.

The discovery of a human skeleton and a red rucksack amongst the roots of a fallen tree jolts memories for DI Wesley Peterson: a hitchhiker who went missing in 2008 and was never found. Meanwhile, in the small Devon village of Petherham, a famous TV psychic is the main attraction at a supernatural weekend. But when the psychic dies in suspicious circumstances Wesley discovers a connection between the dead man and the vanished hitchhiker. But was he responsible for her murder? Or has a shady organisation called The Burial Circle been revived in the present day?

For years, the Stranger House has stood in the village of Illthwaite, offering refuge to travellers. People like Sam, a brilliant young mathematician, who believes that anything that can't be explained by maths isn't worth explaining. And Miguel, a historian running from a priests' seminary, who sees ghosts. Sam is an experienced young woman, Miguel a 26-year-old virgin.

The main aim of detective stories is to entertain, but the best cast a light on human behaviour and display both literary ambition and accomplishment. Even unpretentious detective stories, written for unashamedly commercial reasons, can give us clues to the past and give us insight into a long-vanished world that, for all its imperfections, continues to fascinate.

The adventure begins in London on Tuesday, October 1st, 1872, when rich British gentleman Phileas Fogg gets in an argument with a group of friends. He enters a wager that sets him on a race to make it around the world in 80 days. Although the trip begins as planned with his valet Jean Passepartout, he is quickly mistaken as a bank robber by Scotland Yard detective Fix. Now being pursued on his journey, Fogg must quickly travel in order to win the wager, see the world, and avoid being apprehended for a crime he did not commit in the ultimate adventure story.

Singmass Close has a sinister past. Reputedly haunted by the ghosts of children, in the 50s it was the hunting ground of the Doll Strangler, a ruthless killer who was never brought to justice. Now DI Joe Plantagenet wonders whether a copycat killer is at work when the strangled body of teenager Natalie Parkes is found in the same close, a mutilated doll lying by her side.

A body is found in the woods.... Based on the true story of the shocking murder of Mrs Caroline Luard, which took place in Kent in August 1908. Caroline Luard is shot dead in broad daylight in the grounds of a large country estate. With few clues available, her husband soon becomes the suspect... but is he guilty? Bringing to life the people involved in this terrible crime, in A Dreadful Murder best-selling author Minette Walters uses modern detective skills to attempt to solve a 100-year-old crime.

Hear Sir Chris Bonington's extraordinary story, read by Gordon Griffin. His memoir, Ascent, charts not only his many triumphs in the climbing world - such as the Eiger and the Himalayas - but also the struggles he has faced in his life bringing up a family and maintaining a successful and loving marriage over the decades of travelling the world to conquer mountains.

When Carmel Hennessy begins a new job in North Yorkshire, she finds the historic city of Eborby gripped by fear. A killer is on the prowl who binds and asphyxiates his victims before leaving their naked bodies in isolated country churchyards. The press are calling him the Resurrection Man. Tragic events from the past link Carmel with DI Joe Plantagenet, who believes the case may have occult connections.

Serpent's Point in South Devon is the focus of local legends. The large house on the headland is shrouded in an ancient tale of evil, and when a woman is found strangled on the coastal path nearby, DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. The woman had been house-sitting at Serpent's Point, and Wesley is surprised to discover that she was conducting an investigation of her own into unsolved missing persons cases. Could these enquires have led to her murder?

The next time you visit Olympia, take a good look around and see if you think it would be possible to murder someone in the middle of the crowd there without being seen. The new Comet was fully expected to be the sensation of the annual Motor Show at Olympia. Suddenly, in the middle of the dense crowd of eager spectators, an elderly man lurched forward and collapsed in a dead faint. But Nahum Pershore had not fainted. He was dead, and it was his death that was to provide the real sensation of the show.

When the body of Pauline Brent is found hanging from a yew tree in a local graveyard, DS Wesley Peterson immediately suspects foul play. Then history provides him with a clue. Wesley's archaeologist friend, Neil Watson, has excavated a corpse at his nearby dig - a young woman who, local legend has it, had been publicly hanged from the very same tree before being buried on unhallowed ground five centuries ago. Wesley is now forced to consider the possibility that the killer knows the tree's dark history.

1664. There is an electric air of foreboding on the streets of London. An atmosphere Thomas Chaloner fears will only take a small spark to ignite into another civil war.... Thomas Chaloner has forged a living as spy to the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Clarendon, since the early days of the Restoration. Now, in February 1664, he is aware of an undercurrent of restlessness on the streets of London. The coffee houses are thick with rumours. There is anger at the new laws governing church attendance and a deepening contempt for the loucheness of the court. And there is murder.

Despite many years living in South Devon, DI Wesley Peterson has never visited the tiny island of St Rumon's. That is until erosion from a storm reveals three bodies buried outside the local churchyard. Two are ancient skeletons, but one is far more recent, and Wesley realises he has uncovered a case of murder. But whose remains are they? And who killed them? The island has only a small number of inhabitants. Yet one resident keeps cropping up in Wesley's investigation: the author and self-styled academic Quentin Search.

May 1940: Sergeant Jack Tanner has been posted to a training company on the southeast coast of England where the mysterious deaths of two Polish refugees lead him to believe there has been foul play. As the Germans launch their blitzkrieg in Europe, the entire company are sent to join the battle to stop Hitler's drive across the Low Countries. Pitted against the die-hard Nazis of the SS "Death's Head" division and the great panzer commander, General Rommel himself, it is left to Tanner to get his men back to Allied lines.