Showing titles in Dramatisations

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...

For thirty years the fictional crime novelist and detective Paul Temple, together with his Fleet Street journalist wife Steve, solved case after case in one of BBC Radio's most popular series. They inhabited a sophisticated world of chilled cocktails and fast cars, a world where Sir Graham...

Lady Tresselian invites several guests to stay at her seaside house at Gull’s Point. Against her better judgment she has allowed her late husband’s ward, handsome tennis ace Neville Strange, and his wife Kay to come at the same time as Neville’s ex-wife Audrey. Other guests include Mary...

The very first Inspector Morse novel adapted for radio, plus two bonus short stories A must-listen for fans of Colin Dexter’s famous detective, this never-before-published 1985 dramatisation marks Inspector Morse’s first ever appearance on radio – preceding the hit TV series by a full two...

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...

Radcliffe Emerson, the irascible husband of fellow archaeologist Amelia Peabody, has earned the nickname "Father of Curses"—and in Mazghunah he demonstrates why. Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, he and Amelia are resigned to excavating mounds of rubble in the middle of nowhere.

Robert Beatty stars as Quentin Barnaby: Fire Investigator in Philip Levene’s gripping 1960s crime series A prolific writer for radio and TV, Philip Levene scripted numerous crime dramas and serials for the BBC in the 1960s. One of the most popular was Destination – Fire!, inspired by his...

Patrick Hamilton is renowned for his gritty, slice-of-life tales chronicling the hopes, dreams and obsessions of London's working class in the inter-war years. This collection brings together his key pieces, together with some lesser-known classics and a bonus 2004 documentary exploring his achievements and legacy.

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...

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.

Leonardo Padura's award-winning Cuban detective series featuring Lieutenant Mario Conde. Havana Blue: it's New Year's Day 1989, and Lieutenant Mario Conde wakes up with another terrible hangover and a case which is close to home. Havana Gold: Lieutenant Conde goes on a trip through his childhood Havana haunts when a young female schoolteacher at his old school is murdered. Havana Red: Conde's fondly held prejudices are tested by this case involving a man found strangled in Havana Woods wearing a beautiful red dress.

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...

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.

Ana Bacon, a beautiful young wife and mother, tumbled off a cruise ship into dark and deadly waters. Ana is gone—leaving behind her wealthy husband and adorable daughter—but not everything about her disappearance adds up. What secrets did she leave behind? Investigator Ryan Monahan is a numbers man. So when his company sends him the Bacon case, which could net a ten-million-dollar payout, Monahan doubts that her death is just a tragic accident. But the husband has a substantial alibi and a number of witnesses claim to have seen Ana fall, and the official ruling seems to hold up.

A thrilling full-cast adaptation bringing Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell universe to life Veteran Fourth Echelon agent Sam Fisher has a new mission recruiting and training the next generation of Splinter Cell operatives for the National Security Agency's covert action division. But when a lethal...

A six-part BBC Radio 4 crime drama set in 19th-century London. It is 1830, a year after Sir Robert Peel’s creation of the Metropolitan Police, known as the 'Peelers'. As the brand-new bobbies patrol the beat in their smart blue uniforms, armed only with truncheons and rattles, they form the first line of defence against crime. But as this thrilling series opens, the fledgling detective force is proving unpopular, sparking deep political unrest and public protests. Rioters take to the streets of London, and the police struggle to contain the violence.

A Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system takes down a passenger jetliner in the skies over Belarus, showering the fields below in burning scrap. As the world begins to mourn the horrific accident, one man–new CIA director, George Lawrence–knows it is anything but. Three hundred innocents were sacrificed in order to snuff out the life of one man: Professor Alexey Sokolov, a senior adviser to the Russian government. As well as a CIA asset recruited by a ghost known as the Hangman... Trapp doesn't know any of this.

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he...

Alex Armstrong has changed everything about herself—her name, her appearance, her backstory. She's no longer the terrified teenager a rapt audience saw on television, emerging in handcuffs from the quiet suburban home the night her family was massacred. That girl, Alexandra Quinlan, nicknamed Empty Eyes by the media, was accused of the killings, fought to clear her name, and later took the stand during her highly publicized defamation lawsuit that captured the attention of the nation.

Full-cast adaptations of two of Jane Harris’s gripping novels - plus an interview with the author Listen now to these two stunning, suspenseful historical dramas, performed by a full cast and based on the novels by best-selling author, Jane Harris. The Observations transports listeners to...