Showing results by narrator "Terry Wale" in All Categories

It's 1926: Joe Sandilands is back from India enjoying the frantic pleasures of Jazz Age London. But post-war gaiety soon wears off when Scotland Yard ask Joe to conduct a swift enquiry. Dame Beatrice Joliffe, a much-respected member of the British establishment, has been bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. It seems that death dogged the footsteps of Dame Beatrice, and Joe finds himself investigating the apparent suicides of three young women who had been close to her.

Newly-promoted Captain Nathan Peake is despatched to the Caribbean to take command of the British navy's latest frigate, the 32-gun Unicorn. But the Unicorn already has a tragic history of mutiny - and murder. And her previous captain has washed up in New Orleans with his throat cut. Meanwhile the Revolutionary authorities in Paris have sent the best frigate in the French fleet, the 44-gun Virginie, on a secret mission to spread war, rebellion and mayhem from the shores of Cuba to the swamps of the Mississippi Delta.

Among the coral outcrops of the island of Rota in the Marianas Island, off the Philippines, lies the wreck of a Spanish galleon, the Santa Margarita. Here we are told a tale of the disastrous last voyage, beset by an extraordinary sequence of typhoons and storms, of the Santa Margarita on her way to Acapulco in the spring of 1601.

What could make a successful, happily married man shoot himself? What could make a young artist on the brink of fame throw himself from a window to his death? These are the questions that are faced by Chief Inspector Lamb and his sergeant, Cogan. Neither victim left a note behind, and it appears that nothing untoward had occurred in the weeks preceding their deaths. But something must have led them to take such drastic action, and Lamb intends to find out what it was.

Steven Drury, a respectable barrister, is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Returning to his car after a late-night party, he is knocked to the ground. He catches a clear glimpse of his assailant’s face when the man opens his car door to flee. It is enough for him to identify his attacker, Daniel Fitch, in a police line-up. But, unluckily for Drury, Fitch was running from a robbery gone wrong, one in which he murdered a jeweller. Fitch isn’t going to go down without a fight.

1793. HMS Amazon is returning from an arduous duty in the Indian Ocean when she encounters a French frigate in the Atlantic. When Amazon left England nearly two years before the countries were not at war but any hopes that the peace still holds are shattered as the Frenchman unexpectedly opens fire- a bloody sea battle ensues resulting in both triumph and personal tragedy for Acting Lieutenant John Fury.

Folies Bergère, Paris, 1927. Joe Sandilands hurries to the assistance of an old friend who has been arrested for murder. In a cell of the Quai des Orfÿvres he meets with Sir George Jardine, still in the evening dress stained with the blood of the dead man. The only other witness, a blonde who was sharing the victim's box, has vanished.

Captain Nathan Peake survives a ferocious battle off Brittany, only to be cast into the even more dangerous waters of Post-Revolutionary Paris. There he encounters two of the most beautiful and scandalous courtesans in history and Napoleon Buonaparte. Returned to the command of the frigate Unicorn, Nathan is sent to join another young glory-seeker, Captain Horatio Nelson, in a bid to wreck Buonaparte’s plans for the invasion of Italy, and save its treasures from the invading French hordes.

An exciting reconstruction of the heroic fight of Sir Richard Grenville in his famous galleon, the Revenge, on the last day of August 1591 from the bestselling author Alexander Fullerton. The Revenge, of 500 tons, fought alone for 15 hours against a fleet of Spanish galleons, who were each of them three times, her size. Sir Richard Grenville, stands out as one of the most dramatic characters in England’s history.

When Peter Hadley, second mate of the British tramp steamer Ocean Waif, goes ashore in Philadelphia looking for the sister from whom he has heard nothing for two years, he quickly finds himself caught up in a web of mystery and deceit. It does not take him long to realise that his own life is in danger. But Hadley is a tough customer and knows how to look after himself. His inquiries bring him into contact with a number of colourful, bizarre and dangerous characters who both help and hinder him in his search.

When Detective Sergeant Frank Devon was sent to the West Indian island of St Joseph on an exchange assignment, he was told that it would be more of a holiday in the sun than work. And so it would have been, if he had not started looking beyond the limits of his authorised activities. He began to observe certain goings-on that seemed highly suspicious; but when he reported his findings he was met with either indifference or outright disapproval.

Joe Sandilands has been dispatched to France to stay as the guest of a glamorous French war-widow who is determined that Joe should support her claim that a mysterious shell-shocked soldier is her husband. The problem is that four other claimants have identified him differently. Joe decides to investigate the four claimants and picks his way through a tangle of lies, deceit, and manipulation, uncovering a cleverly concealed murder committed during the war years.

When Sergeant Fred Mason of the Maritime Royal Artillery eventually locates his new ship SS Radgate, he finds the little coaster quite a contrast to his previous posting. Despite the difficulties of working during the London bombing raids, the crew must get themselves ready for the invasion of France. Through the confusion, agony and bloodshed of D-Day, against the ever-present threat of mines, bombs and shells, the story switches from London to the Normandy beaches and Mulberry harbour as the crew weathers storms and tragedies.

Bearing military information that could save 30,000 lives, John Farjeon sets off through the Malayan jungle. His duty is clearcut – to rendezvous with the Allied invasion force. Nothing short of the Japs can stop him. But here are other obligations beyond patriotism. Like the obligation a man feels to a woman in danger. And when Farjeon discovers a beautiful Eurasian with two children in her care he is faced with an agonising decision.

Admiral Nelson has sent Captain Nathan Peake on a desperate journey to convey a grim warning to British India. Bonaparte's army is poised to deliver a fatal blow by marching overland to India. Arriving in Bombay, Nathan takes command of the East India Company's naval wing - the Bombay Marine - an under-armed and poorly crewed flotilla.

One of the most important attributes of a prospective candidate for the U.S. presidency is that of being clean; not to have any dirt in your background, present or past. Senator William S. Gaullicauder appeared to fit the bill perfectly in this respect. But then a skeleton came rattling out of an English cupboard, threatening the senator’s squeaky clean reputation. The story had to be suppressed, and fast. But competing interests were involved, and violence and murder would ensue.

Harry Banner turns up in London one November evening having just got back from Venezuela. He wants to see Robert Cade, a man he'd known six years earlier in Buenos Aires. He needs to ask him for a small favour: to keep a parcel until he calls back for it. The trouble is, Banner never does call back. The next morning he is found dead in his hotel room with a stab wound to his chest.

Kemp blamed himself: he should have kept more closely in touch with his younger sister. Now it appears that Lorna has gone off to Colombia with a man named Roberto Vargas. But Kemp finds the story hard to swallow - there's something fishy about it.

1796: Nathan Peake, captain of the frigate Unicorn is sent with a small squadron to help bring Venice into an Italian alliance against the French. He establishes a British naval presence, harrying the French corsairs that swarm out of Ancona. While Nathan confronts the politics in Venice, his mission is further complicated by the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, Junot. Meanwhile, in Venice, French troops move into the city. Nathan learns that Bonaparte is negotiating a peace deal with the Austrians - Britain's only remaining ally. Worse, the Spanish are about to ally with the French.

The drug trade route stretched from London across Europe and part of Asia to the borders of Afghanistan. Investigating one part of it cost the life of a police detective name George Lacon. Although his death was reportedly suicide, Detective Inspector Marler felt certain it was murder. But to trace the murderers proved a difficult task.