Showing titles in Dramatisations

Famous crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, visiting her friend Judith Butler in the little town of Woodleigh Common, is invited to a Hallowe'en Party put on by society hostess Mrs Rowena Drake for the local teenagers. During her preparations for the party, the conversation turns to Ariadne's grisly...

Miss Marple, living a quiet life in St Mary Mead, is saddened to hear of the death of Jason Rafiel. Not that they were friends - the old financier was much too irascible and self-centred for friendship - but they had once been allies in solving a series of murders that took place on the tiny...

A collection of RD Wingfield’s finest thrillers from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties Best known for his ‘Inspector Jack Frost’ series of novels, RD Wingfield also penned a string of gripping thrillers for BBC Radio. Initially thought lost, many of the 14 dramas in this collection were...

The pleasant village of Market Kindle in the south of England is home to Stoneygates, a school for delinquent boys housed in a Victorian mansion belonging to the rich and elderly Carrie Louise Serrocold and her husband Lewis. When Miss Marple pays her old friend Carrie Louise a visit, she...

A millionaire strikes a deal on the seedier side of Paris and gives to his heartsick daughter, Ruth Kettering, the 'Heart of Fire', one of the world's legendary jewels that once adorned the crown of the Tsars. Legend has it that the possession of the jewel leads to death - but despite her...

Anton Lesser stars as a Berlin detective who stumbles upon the 20th century's most terrifying secret in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Robert Harris's bestselling novel. The year is 1964, and it's a week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Nazi Germany won the Second World War...

The collected BBC Radio 4 crime dramas featuring Inspector Coleman and Sergeant Astor Like his actor namesake, Ronald Coleman is a suave, well-spoken English gentleman. But although he's a movie buff, Coleman is no film star - he's a copper, and a Detective Inspector to boot. Together with his...

This is the story that made Agatha Christie famous, and which was also one of her own favourites. It begins when the wealthy Mrs Farrars is found dead of an apparent overdose, one year after the death of her husband. The villagers of King's Abbot are suspicious, for local rumour has it that...

Young Gwenda Reed arrives in England from New Zealand, travelling ahead of her husband Giles and charged with the task of finding the perfect place to make their base. In the quiet village of Dilmouth, she finds a house with immediate appeal. A few renovations will convert it into her ideal home...

This was to be her last day alive. The renowned criminal psychologist Ira Samin prepared her suicide thoroughly. The death of her eldest daughter had weighed too heavily on her conscience for her to carry on and she yearned for one last drink to raise a toast to oblivion. Her morbid plans are interrupted and she is called in to negotiate a gruesome hostage situation at a radio station where a psychopath is playing a morbid game.

Hercule Poirot and his good friend Captain Hastings are enjoying a well-deserved break on the Cornish Riviera. Wandering along the terrace of the Hotel Majestic on the first morning of their stay, Poirot literally falls at the feet of a pretty, dark-haired girl and, much to Hastings' delight...

Who is behind the mysterious advert reading ‘Wife available – what offers?’ What prompted a ‘third girl’ to suddenly pack her bags and leave her flatshare? And when a newly married couple’s honeymoon period comes to an abrupt end, is the wedding dress to blame? Conceived by respected...

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin’. This dramatisation, set in...

Ann Cleeves is well known for her 'Vera', 'Shetland', and 'Two Rivers' crime series, all of which have been adapted into hit TV shows. She was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2017, and was appointed an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List for services to reading and libraries. This collection includes full-cast dramatisations of the first two 'Shetland' novels featuring Detective Jimmy Perez, as well as three short stories and a discussion with the bestselling author.

'Some are born to sweet delight/Some are born to endless night' - William Blake. Agatha Christie wrote Endless Night in 1967, and it is one of her greatest - and most unusual - novels. Creepy, malevolent and claustrophobic, it is a story about choices, the nature of good and evil, and grim...

A group of adventurers set out from Damascus to visit the legendary Gate of Baghdad, also known as the Gate of Death. When one of the party is found dead, the others look to the seemingly unimpeachable Mr Parker Pyne...

Mit Kommissar Maigret schuf Georges Simenon eine der eindrucksvollsten Figuren der Kriminalliteratur – leise, beharrlich und zutiefst menschlich. Diese 20 Hörspiele aus vier Jahrzehnten (1953–1994) lassen Maigrets Welt neu lebendig werden: das nächtliche Paris, verrauchte Cafés, elegante Boulevards und düstere Hafenkneipen. Statt aus Action entfaltet sich Spannung aus Atmosphäre, feiner Psychologie und dem genauen Zuhören eines Ermittlers, der seine Fälle mit Geduld und Menschenkenntnis löst.

Matthias Hegel ist forensischer Phonetiker und der beste Audio-Profiler Deutschlands. Er ist imstande, nur anhand von Tönen, Geräuschen, Dialekten und Stimmfarben ein psychologisches und optisches Profil von Menschen zu erstellen. Dank ihm sitzen einige der gefährlichsten Straftäter im Gefängnis. Erpresser, Geiselnehmer, Attentäter, von denen die Ermittler oftmals nur kurze Audiomitschnitte hatten. Hegel ist faszinierend, charismatisch, schwer durchschaubar. Und: Er sitzt in Einzelhaft. Vor einem Jahr hat er eine obdachlose Frau bestialisch ermordet.

Brilliant detective Sam Spade is the quintessential private eye, with his own code of ethics. When a standard stakeout goes wrong and Spade’s partner is killed, he finds himself drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure of dubious origin—a golden bird encrusted with jewels. But he’s not the only one on the trail of the falcon. Hot on his heels are Joel Cairo, a perfumed grifter; an oversized adventurer named Gutman; and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful but treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a hat.

Leon Garfield was the renowned author of more than 30 novels for children and adults. He won numerous awards for his work, including the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award and the inaugural Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Inspired by Charles Dickens, he set many of his tales in the 18th and 19th century, and became Dickens’ co-author when he wrote an ending to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was left unfinished on Dickens’ death. Their joint version was dramatised for radio in 1990, and is included here, together with adaptations of two of Garfield’s own thrilling adventures.