Showing results by narrator "John Telfer" in All Categories

Everyone needs a break now and then but sometimes getting away from it all can be murder. Martin Edwards presents a jam-packed travel case of 18 mysteries, featuring short stories from crime legends, such as Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley and Ethel Lina White, alongside more obscure writers revived in this anthology. Grab your ticket for a journey from the classic 1920s seaside holiday to the 1980s homebody’s dream – perfect for an armchair reverie or a summer getaway.

A rip-roaring account of the dramatic four-year siege of Britain’s Mediterranean garrison by Spain and France—an overlooked key to the British loss in the American Revolution For more than three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded...

A dark shadow looms over the Rhineland, where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the pair find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Schädel, in which a small group of suspects are still assembled. As thunder rolls in the distance, Bencolin and Marle enter a world steeped in macabre legends of murder and magic to catch the killer still walking the maze-like passages and towers of the keep.

Behind the stage lights and word-perfect soliloquies, sinister secrets are lurking in the wings. The mysteries in this collection reveal the dark side to theatre and performing arts: a world of backstage dealings, where unscrupulous actors risk everything to land a starring role, costumed figures lead to mistaken identities, and on-stage deaths begin to look a little too convincing. This expertly curated thespian anthology features 14 stories from giants of the classic crime genre.

The Royal Navy to which Admiral Lord Nelson sacrificed his life depended on thousands of sailors and marines to man the great wind-powered wooden warships. Drawn from all over Britain and beyond, often unwillingly, these ordinary men made the navy invincible through skill, courage and sheer determination.

On a sultry afternoon in July, a man stumbles through thick foliage, making for the coast. He wears prisoner's garb and guards are hot on his heels. Happening upon a bather's clothes, the escapee leaves the scene looking the part of the average beachcomber. But it can be hard to stay hidden forever. When a blackmailer intrudes upon the promising life of the man who now calls himself Mr. Pottermack, a violent fate befalls him, and the stakes are set: Pottermack must avoid discovery at all costs to escape the hangman's noose.

Ashore on leave, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd learns of a dismal harvest and general hardship among the population. In Germany, Napoleon Bonaparte is celebrating victories that once again make his name feared throughout Europe. An armistice is signed and while the Allies lick their wounds Bonaparte sets to preparing for a grand advance. And, in a fragile peace, and saddled with huge war debts, the government has no choice but to place HMS Thunderer, along with many other Royal Navy ships, in reserve, until the Navy can decide what to do with their great fleets.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers presents a look at morality and motive as playwright John Scales grows angrier and more resentful towards the actor who reinvented his script, and must decide how far he will allow his hatred to take him.

He's insisting he's a Tide Lord and he's begging us to try again...to kill him, that is. When a routine hanging goes wrong, the survivor announces he is Cayal the immortal Prince, a Tide Lord. However, the only known record of the immortal beings of Amyrantha is the Tide Lord Tarot...and everyone knows it is only a parlour-game, an amusement. Arkady Desean, an expert on the legends of the Crasii - a part-animal, part-human race - is sent to interrogate Cayal.

The Tide Lords are returning and that means every man, woman and child is in danger... Arkady is exiled to the repressive Torlenian capital, where she makes some unexpected friends and some powerful enemies, all of whom seem bent on using her to wreak vengeance on each other. Things are not going smoothly for Declan Hawkes, the King's Spymaster, either, and not just because the Empress of the Five Realms has turned up in Caelum with her family.

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, was shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now missing artist Matt Caldwell.

1796. John Pearce is stuck with a difficult mission, a crew of Quota Men forced to enlist in the Royal Navy, four new midshipmen as well as Samuel Oliphant, companion cum spy, whom he finds a constant irritant. In his favour, he commands HMS Hazard, a speedy warship, a pair of competent officers and, of course, his trusty friends the Pelicans. Their mission is to head for the Mediterranean Fleet and warn Admiral Sir John Jervis of impending danger he will face, fighting a combined French/Spanish fleet.

The streets of London have been home to many great detectives since the days of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with some of the best authors in the genre taking to the short story form to pit their sleuths against crimes ranging from murders on the Tube to heists from the capital's finest jewellers. Featuring a roster of Scotland Yard's meticulous best, a cohort of daring doctors and a cadre of characterful private investigators, this new selection by Martin Edwards includes 18 vintage mystery stories which showcase the city's most compelling classic cases.

James Bennett, nephew of Sir Henry Merrivale (the cantankerous yet genius sleuth), has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas, among the retinue of the glamorous Hollywood actress Marcia Tait. Her producer, her lover, her playwright and her agent are all here along with the haughty master of the estate, Canifes and his daughter. So many suspects they become when Marcia Tait is found dead on Christmas morning in the lakeside pavilion, having been left there alone the night before and with a distinct lack of footprints in the snow to reveal any possible killer.

Meet the greatest Greek general you've never heard of: Philopoemen. In his day, a leader as skilled and as dangerous as Hannibal: a ferocious fighter, a superb general, and credited as the inventor of modern 'special operations'. More importantly, he was a brilliant political leader. He commanded Greek forces at the turn of the third century BC, when mighty Rome, fresh from the destruction of Carthage, and Imperial Macedon, the greatest power of the day, chose Greece as their battlefield. 

This sweeping saga takes us from the banks of the River Oder as the Red Army begins its relentless drive towards the still beating heart of the Third Reich: Berlin. Using vivid first-hand accounts, Prit Buttar reveals the brutal combat that defined the final death throes of the Third Reich.

On August 29, 1973, a routine dive to the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed went badly wrong. Pisces III, with Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson onboard, had tried to surface when a catastrophic fault suddenly sent the mini-submarine tumbling to the ocean bed - almost half a mile below. Badly damaged, buried nose first in a bed of sand, the submarine and the two men were now trapped far beyond the depth of all previous sub-sea rescues. They had just two days’ worth of oxygen. Rescue was three days away.

As the country recovers from the war with France, and whispers that the pestilence has returned to England grow louder, fear is in the heart of every nobleman and commoner alike. Sir Ralph de Mandeville, ex-solider and newly appointed Justice of the Peace is sent to Langbarugh, just outside York, to investigate the murder of Coroner Sir Boderick de Whitby. More deaths quickly follow, and while these are swiftly dealt with as plague victims, Sir Ralph and his two assistants Merek and Peter soon uncover something altogether more horrifying… A greater evil is at large in the northern wapentakes.

There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But listeners should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.

John Pearce faces a court martial, but will a cowardly chief witness stand up to questioning? With the matter unresolved, HMS Hazard is put under the command of Horatio Nelson. In London, the government denies prize money for the cargo of silver Pearce took off the Santa Leocadia, claiming it as property of the Crown. Pearce’s prize agent seeks to fight this, only to be outmanoeuvred by devious Henry Dundas. From Elba, Pearce is sent on a mission to collect fleeing members of the Corsican government.