Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

September 1940. As the Blitz takes its nightly toll on London and Hitler prepares his invasion fleet just across the Channel in occupied France, Britain is full of talk about enemy agents. Suspicion is at an all-time high, and no one is sure who can be trusted. In Canning Town, rescue workers are unsettled when they return to a damaged street and discover a body that shouldn’t be there. When closer examination of the corpse reveals death by strangling, Detective Inspector John Jago is called upon to investigate.

When private investigator, Dan Armstrong, and his girlfriend, Anna, are invited to the gorgeous island of Elba for a much-needed break, he jumps at the chance. The thought of sun-drenched shores makes Dan promise Anna he won't “play detective” for a whole week… Their luxurious hotel, with its wonderful food and picturesque seaside views, seems the perfect escape, especially with Dan's best friend Virgilio and his wife joining them. But the calm shatters with a sinister encounter and a sudden, suspicious death..

December, 1940. Christmas is coming, but the season of goodwill is overshadowed by the death and destruction of the Blitz. In London's Covent Garden, where the glamour of theatreland rubs shoulders with the bustle of the capital's biggest fruit and vegetable market, the war has closed the theatres and ruined the market trade. When a daylight air raid hits the Prince Albert Theatre in Drury Lane, rescuers find a man dying in the wreckage. But it wasn't the bomb that's ending his life - he's been stabbed, and with his dying breath he whispers what sounds like a fragmented confession.

DI Nick Dixon is on the hunt for a vicious serial killer, following a trail of fingerprints and DNA across west Somerset. When the body of a young woman is found on the building site of a nuclear power station, work grinds to a halt. The body bears all the hallmarks of yet another random murder at the hands of the escaped killer. Then Dixon finds a motive. Fighting for his place on the Major Investigation Team, he soon uncovers a family’s desperate search for the truth, exposing a web of corruption and death that will shake the billion-pound construction project to its foundations.

World-renowned archaeologist Nina Wilde and her husband, former SAS soldier Eddie Chase, now lead a quiet life—the only real danger posed by their rebellious teenage daughter. Until, on a visit to a newly discovered temple, they're suddenly engulfed in a deadly hunt for an ancient weapon which threatens the entire globe. From the bustling streets of Mexico City to the mountainous jungles of Guatemala, Nina and Eddie—with daughter Gracie in tow—are the only ones who can prevent an apocalyptic evil seizing control of an unstoppable power.

October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a light shining like a beacon to the enemy aircraft overhead, violating the strict blackout regulations. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman – and she's been strangled with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women in the mid-1930s but has never been caught. Is there a connection?

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Adam Lambrianu understands only too well the fearsome family legacy he's inherited. He only wants to make his family proud, but as a renowned playboy and bad boy he has a wild and reckless reputation. Scarlet Lambrianu knows her little brother needs to step up in running the family casino business and empire, but she also worries the old gangland ways don’t interest him anymore. Adam's sure he can make his own money and build his own legacy in his own unique way. Desperate to keep Adam in line, old family friend Julie Gold is called in to help.

We cannot know how to fix a problem until we understand its causes. But even for some of the most common mental health problems, three specialists might offer you three completely different treatments. As a cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Professor Anthony David brings together many fields of study, from social and cognitive psychology to neurology. The key for each patient might be anything from a traumatic memory to a chemical imbalance, an unhealthy way of thinking or a hidden tumour.

In the most authoritative book ever written about Apollo, David Whitehouse reveals the true drama behind the mission, telling the story in the words of those who took part - based around exclusive interviews with the key players. This enthralling book takes us from the early rocket pioneers to the shock America received from the Soviets' launch of the first satellite, Sputnik; from the race to put the first person into space, through President Kennedy's enthusiasm and later doubts, to the astronauts' intense competition to leave the first footprint.

When the body of a teenage girl is found in a London hotel, DI Patrick Lennon is mystified. Nobody saw her or her killer enter the hotel, and there is no apparent motive - until a second teenager is found and Lennon realises somebody is targeting fans of the world's biggest boy band.

A terrible storm is brewing in London, and Nathan Garrett, the sorcerer known as Hellequin, is the only one who can stop it. But his enemies have other plans. Harnessing the power of an ancient stone tablet, they cast Nate and his allies into another realm, where a bloody conflict rages between creatures twisted by magic. Meanwhile, with his friends' lives in danger, Nate must put centuries of differences aside, and place his trust in one of his greatest foes.

Archaeologist Nina Wilde believes she has found the location of the lost city of Atlantis, and now she wants the opportunity to prove her theory. Someone else though wants her dead! With the help of ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase and beautiful heiress Kari Frost, Nina faces a breakneck race against time around the world, pursued at every step by agents of the mysterious and murderous Brotherhood of Selasphoros.

When a badly decomposed body is discovered during an archaeological dig on the Sedgemoor battlefield, Avon and Somerset police are notified immediately. The remains are recent, and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Lewis knows exactly who they have found. A single stab wound from a curved blade implicates convicted serial killer Daniel Parker, who Lewis arrested fifteen years ago.

Said to make whoever holds it unstoppable in battle, the sword Excalibur has been coveted across the ages and thought lost for more than a thousand years. With a cryptic message to Archaeologist Nina Wilde, this may be about to change. Historian Bernd Rust believes he can locate Excalibur...and that the sword is the key to harnessing an incredible source of energy. Nina is sceptical - until she and Rust are attacked by mercenaries determined to steal his research.

On the eve of Elaine Southey's 21st birthday, Ivan Sweet has been found dead in his flat in the basement of the Southeys' historic north London home. A slick charmer to some of the tenants and a loathsome young scoundrel to others, his death doesn't draw out many tears among the house's residents and neighbours. And yet the sordid truth starts to seep into the heart of their small community. A murderer is living among them, and who's to say when they might strike again?

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER! 'Scarrow's Berlin is sharply drawn with closely observed detail, a place that reeks of threat and fear - and not just from the Gestapo' Financial Times 'Gripping, with an electric atmosphere and cracking pace' Sun Berlin. 1940. Hitler's rule casts a menacing...

Early on a cold Somerset morning, ten year old Alesha Daniels is reported missing by her father, a violent alcoholic. Her mother, a known drug addict, is found unconscious, but it’s her mother’s boyfriend the police are keen to trace. As the hunt for Alesha gathers pace, a second local girl is taken, plunging another family into the depths of despair.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

Ruslan Akulov, the legendary Ukrainian assassin known as Wolf Six, wakes to find the plane he’s on plummeting, and with no real memory of how he got there. Surviving the crash, only to be detained by a small-town sheriff and accused of two murders, that for once he didn’t commit, Akulov must piece together the fragments of his concussed memory to understand how his last mission in Canada as a black asset for the CIA went so catastrophically wrong. Yet far darker forces are hunting him.

Alex Reeve was Operative 66. A former special-ops soldier and one of the UK's deadliest weapons, he was a member of the secretive SC9 - an elite security service with a remit to neutralise the country's most dangerous enemies. Falsely accused of treason, Reeve was forced to hide in the shadows as the brutal assassins he once trained alongside sought to eliminate the 'rogue asset' at any cost. But tricked into revealing himself, Reeve is suddenly dragged into a lethal conspiracy involving the British state, shadowy Russian agents...and his own father.