Showing results by narrator "Andrew Wincott" in All Categories

When Brother Anselm and his novice are summoned to the Church of St Michael’s in Candlewick to perform an exorcism, little are they prepared for the horror that waits. The demons and apparitions that plague the church would appear to have been summoned by an infamous sorcerer known as the Midnight Man. But what has he unwittingly unleashed - and why? Is someone using the haunting as the perfect cover for their murderous intent? And is there any link with the sudden disappearances of a number of young women in the area? The answers lie in the past and an unresolved wickedness from many decades before.

In 2001, Ian McKellen put on the robe and pointed hat of a wizard named Gandalf and won a place in the hearts of Tolkien fans worldwide. Though his role in the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings introduced him to a new audience, McKellen had a thriving career a lifetime before his visit to Middle Earth. He made his West End acting debut in 1964 in James Saunders's A Scent of Flowers, but it was in 1980 that he took Broadway by storm when he played Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play Amadeus....

Autobiographical without being an autobiography, confessional without disclosing his private self, The Summing Up, written when Maugham was sixty-four, is an inimitable expression of a personal credo. It is not only a classic avowal of a professional author's ideas about style, literature, art, drama and philosophy, but also an illuminating insight into this great writer's craft.

Set in the literary and journalistic buzz of late 19th-century London, New Grub Street depicts a world that George Gissing knew inside out. Elements of his own experience are diffused in different characters – in particular the struggling, talented Edwin Reardon and the young, "modern" Jasper Milvain – through which he explores the sense of crisis for writers at the time: the gulf between aesthetic integrity and commercial success. It was the first major novel to place the concept of authorship at the heart of the plot.

Nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed. DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a young man who has recently disappeared.

Following a ferocious battle against Nurgle’s hordes, Lieutenant Quiller and the crew of Titans’ Bane are trapped inside the stricken Shadowsword. With her Cadian unit half-depleted, Quiller is forced to rely upon Paragonian and Mordian replacements. Vicious infighting within the tank soon becomes as dangerous as the enemy outside. In order to survive, Quiller knows she must remind her men that loyalty, camaraderie and self-sacrifice in the name of the Emperor transcends all planetary customs and patriotism.

Crime reporter Eve Singer's career is on the downward slope when a spate of bizarre murders - each carefully orchestrated and advertised like performance art - begin in her territory. Covering these very public crimes revives her byline, and when the killer contacts Eve to discuss her coverage of his crimes, she is suddenly on the inside of the biggest murder investigation of the decade. But as the killer becomes increasingly obsessed with her, Eve realizes there's a thin line between inside information and becoming an accomplice to murder.

How far would you go to hold on to the people you love? When Olivia Brookes calls the police to report that her husband and children are missing, she believes she will never see them again. She has reason to fear the worst; this isn’t the first tragedy that Olivia has experienced. Now, two years later, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Douglas is called in to investigate this family again, but this time it’s Olivia who has disappeared. All the evidence suggests that she was in the family home that morning.

Who was the man that would become Caesar's lieutenant, Brutus' rival, Cleopatra's lover, and Octavian's enemy? When his stepfather is executed for his involvement in the Catilinarian conspiracy, Mark Antony and his family are disgraced. His adolescence is marked by scandal and mischief, his love affairs are fleeting, and yet, his ambition is vast. Antony's path to prosperity leads him to an education in Athens, a campaign for a seat in the Senate, and a position of military command.

Although William Morris is known primarily as a designer, he was also a writer of poetry and prose. The novel News from Nowhere (subtitled An Epoch of Rest Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance) is his best-known prose work and describes a humane socialist future as experienced by William Guest, who is transplanted there from the 19th century. Set in London and Oxfordshire, the novel takes place in 2090, over a century after a revolutionary upheaval. It remains a distinctive literary contribution to the concept of the utopian ideal.

Sometimes the facts are even more extraordinary than the fiction... This book tells the story of Lady Catherine, a beautiful American girl who became the chatelaine of Highclere Castle, the setting for Julian Fellowes' award-winning drama Downton Abbey. Charming and charismatic, Catherine caught the eye of Lord Porchester (or 'Porchey', as he was known) when she was just 20 years old, and wearing a pale yellow dress at a ball. She had already turned down 14 proposals before she eventually married Porchey in 1922.

The publishing house of John Murray was founded in Fleet Street in 1768 and remained a family firm over seven generations. Published to coincide with this remarkable achievement' and in the anniversary year, Dear Mr Murray is a collection of some of the best letters from the hundreds of thousands held in the John Murray Archive. They reveal not only the story of some of the most interesting and influential books in history but also the remarkable friendships - as well as occasional animosities - between author and publisher as well as readers, editors, printers and illustrators.

When the decomposing body of a young woman is found, the wounds on her wrists suggest an open-and-shut case of suicide. But Jack Caffery is not so sure. Other apparent suicides are cropping up, and they all have a connection to Elf's Grotto, a nearly bottomless network of flooded quarries just outside the city. Caffery begins to suspect a shadowy and sinister predator, someone - or something - that can disappear into darkness and slip into houses unseen.

Join elven hero Vale Moonwing and adventurer Cassius Stormblade on their quest through the depths of Firetop Mountain. Can they survive the deadly traps and evade Zagor's army of the undead? Can they stay alive long enough to confront the dark warlock himself?

A woman gets involved with a psychic who may be able to find her missing son. Five footprints are the only sign that four-year-old Daniel Buck was ever here. Every day, Anna Buck guards the little prints in the cement. Polishing them to a shine. Keeping them safe. Spiraling toward insanity. Anna is desperate for hope, which she's not getting from the police or her husband, James. So when a woman tells her she's found a true psychic, a "shut eye", she grasps at it. Maybe he can tell her what happened to her son.

When the underhive bounty hunter Arturos delivers a renegade Goliath to the Guilder Meriko, he expects his payment of 60 credits for the capture. But Meriko has taken out more bounties than he can afford, and payment isn't forthcoming.... Luckily for him, among the junk in his shop is a treasure that's worth Arturos' time and effort. A Spiraptor, a mechanical bodyguard programmed to protect a wealthy individual, it sends Arturos on a quest that could make his fortune - or claim his life.

The Blackstone Fortress is silent no longer. Through heretical rituals, the followers of the risen Obsidius Mallex have activated more of the Talisman of Vaul’s apocalyptic weapons and created a corrupted citadel in the heart of the fortress itself. Where once only the most desperate and determined adventurers struck out into the Unfathomable in search of riches, now a new breed of explorer delves into the Blackstone to do battle with the forces of the Ruinous Powers.

Well-meaning do-gooder Clare Barker is back, and dealing with more office politics, troublesome clients and domestic dramas. Secretly regarding herself as a cross between Mother Theresa and Wonder Woman, she's got all the right jargon for every problem, but never any practical solutions. However, in today's 'Big Society' there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker (or even Clare). These six series find her struggling once again to control both her professional and private life.

A BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation of Shakespeare’s classic ‘Cymbeline’, starring Bill Wallis. Originally broadcast in December 2006 as part of the ‘Drama on 3’ collection.Shakespeare's play, set during the Roman invasion of Britain, centres around the banishment of the man who has incurred the wrath of the king by secretly marrying his daughter. Confusion follows in an intricate plot in which nobody is quite who they seem to be.

Though it is for the sparkling epic, Aeneid, that the Roman poet Virgil is best known, it was these two poems, The Eclogues and Georgics, which first established his reputation.