Suspense: Tales Well Calculated - Volume 1

Manchester detective DCI Stone and his team are faced with 10 complex, morally challenging cases in this collection of hard-hitting radio dramas. As Series 5 opens, Stone is still reeling from the mishandled shooting of Callum Gartside, a gunman who had murdered his own family. With his personal life in tatters, he must find the strength to hold it together and do his job. In Dirt by Martin Jameson, he investigates a body in a flooded gravel pit; in Blood Money by Richard Monks, he looks into the hit-and-run killing of a cyclist; and in A Cut Above by Marcia Layne, he looks into a suspected case of female genital mutilation. 

Based on Nigel Fairs' 'murder mystery serial' that has been running for over 21 years (new episodes performed every month in country houses, steam trains, jailhouses, castles and restaurants throughout the UK), Shilling & Sixpence Investigate takes place in a sometimes quirky, sometimes dark world where nobody is quite whom they seem.  

Late Victorian London. When James Miller, the most respectable of Scottish businessmen, is pulled, dead, from the Thames, his daughter is drawn into an investigation which reveals a whole world of secrets and corruption. Alongside local detective Culley, Catriona’s search for her father’s killer leads all the way to the tragic truth behind the ghostly legend of The Darkwater Bride and the power of her deadly kiss. An epic drama starring Adrian Scarborough, Claire Corbett, Freya Mayor and Jamie Glover, The Darkwater Bride combines the genres of the Victorian mystery thriller with the equally classic Victorian mode of the ghostly tale.

Back in Folkestone, the residents are dealing with the aftereffects of a devastating air raid. Howard Argent is kept busy at the Bevan while Ulysses Pilchard experiments with electroshock therapy. Meanwhile, women’s suffrage, prostitution and unmarried mothers are hot topics, and Kitty Lumley experiences the sharp end of intolerance. 

As The Jewel in the Crown opens, World War II is at its height, and Gandhi is calling for the British to leave. When Daphne Manners arrives in Mayapore, she meets two men who will change her life: Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick. She begins to fall for Hari, but Ronald Merrick - the local police superintendent - becomes infatuated with her and seethes with hatred for Hari. The Day of the Scorpion finds Merrick worming his way into the Layton family, and his treatment of Hari Kumar is revealed.

An unsettling collection of full-cast dramas from the long-running BBC Radio 4 horror series. Throughout five series of Fear on 4 from 1988-1997, Edward de Souza was The Man in Black, a sinister raconteur who introduced a weekly half hour of terror and suspense. Here, he welcomes us to his house of horrors as he presents 13 terrifying tales that will make your flesh crawl. With eerie sound effects that enhance the atmosphere of dread, these bloodcurdling adaptations run the gamut from the mysterious to the macabre. With superb casts including Imelda Staunton, Bernard Cribbins, Anna Massey, Thora Hird and Sean Barrett.

Full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of the first five Falco novels by Lindsey Davis, starring Anton Lesser as Marcus Didius Falco.

Ian Carmichael stars as Lord Peter Wimsey in these classic BBC radio dramatisations of Dorothy L Sayers' Golden Age crime novels. Gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey starred in a number of novels and short stories by Dorothy L Sayers. These full-cast adaptations - first broadcast on BBC radio between 1979 and 2010 - are cherished by crime aficionados worldwide. The stories featured are Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon.

Nine BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations of the crime novels of Qiu Xiaolong, set in Shanghai. Starring Jamie Zubairi as Chief Inspector Chen Cao, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry. Through thrilling crime drama, these nine mysteries paint a portrait of modern life in communist China, depicting traditional Shanghai life amidst the old alleyways and how it is rapidly changing with modernisation.

Kenneth Cranham and Alex Lanipekun star in these 15 hard-hitting crime dramas. Chalk and cheese coppers Max Matthews and Sean Armitage are from different generations and different worlds, but together they make a remarkable team. In this powerful, unconventional police procedural, we join the detective duo in the interview room as they practise their unique style of interrogation in a bid to extract a confession....

When Dr Helen Ash witnesses the brutal and disturbing crash of the plane that is carrying her father, the incident sets her on an investigation into a dark conspiracy. Florian Chauvin was flying to Wales to tell his daughter something important, but his plane fell out of the sky. In the aftermath of the crash, Helen discovers that one of the passengers doesn't seem to have a heart. 

Suspense went through several major phases, characterized by different hosts, sponsors, and director/producers. Formula plot devices were followed for all but a handful of episodes: The protagonist was usually a normal person suddenly dropped into a threatening or bizarre situation; solutions were "withheld until the last possible second"; and evildoers were usually punished in the end.

Robert Glenister and Ian McDiarmid star in a gripping BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of William Peter Blatty’s classic horror novel. Summoned to a case of apparent possession, Father Karras is at first sceptical then horrified. The victim - a 12-year-old girl named Regan - seems to be controlled by a malignant supernatural force that makes her swear, blaspheme, scream in agony and perform appalling acts.

Seventeen stories from the gritty crime series created by Danny Brocklehurst, starring Hugo Speer as Manchester detective John Stone. This collection brings together Series 1 to 4 of this intelligent detective drama, tackling morally ambiguous, complex and challenging subjects. DCI Stone and his team investigate a series of brutal murders and missing person cases, among other grisly crimes. Starring Hugo Speer as DCI John Stone, Craig Cheetham as DI Mike Tanner and Deborah McAndrew as DS Sue Kelly.

Full-cast dramatisations of seven of Ruth Rendell's tense psychological thrillers. This collection includes The Bridesmaid, Going Wrong, King Solomon’s Carpet, People Don’t Do Such Things, The Fever Tree, The Dreadful Day of Judgment and Thornapple. Among the casts of these seven suspenseful adaptations are Jamie Glover, Mark Strong, Reece Shearsmith, Paul Rhys, Danny Sapani and Juliet Aubrey.