Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

Nearly fifty years ago, the small Welsh village of Anfarwol was the scene of a series of brutal murders. Since then, multiple people have met with accidents, or gone missing never to be found, while those responsible have evaded detection for decades. When Remy Roax is kidnapped while investigating the disappearances, Nate Garrett and allies are brought in to solve the mystery, and bring their friend home. Unfortunately for Remy’s abductors, they have no inkling how bad of an idea it was to bring him to a place where he can cause nothing but mayhem.

For Emily Rossi, life may not be perfect, but it's pretty close. She has a great career, a house in the country, a solid marriage to Eric and two wonderful children - tennis superstar Daniel and quiet, sensitive Zara. But when her fourteen-year-old daughter brings home a toxic new best friend, Emily’s seemingly perfect family starts to spiral out of control.

Dr Max Hunter, Special Agent Amy Fox and the rest of the HARPA Team are on the most important mission of their lives to rescue their teammate Quinn Mosley, HARPA Director Jim Gates and his wife Susanna, and Hunter's UNESCO manager Professor Juliette Bonnaire who have all been kidnapped by a mysterious organisation claiming to be the Illuminati. The group's leader, Oriax, says he will trade their friends' lives for the Sword of the Archangel Michael and gives them a 24 hour deadline to meet his demands.

After a chance meeting in the pub, Roger Morgan-Grenville and his friend Duncan decide to take up beekeeping. Their enthusiasm matched only by their ignorance, they are pitched into an arcane world of unexpected challenges. Coping with many setbacks along the way, they manage to create a colony of beehives, finishing two years later with more honey than anyone knows what to do with. By standing back from their normal lives and working with the cycle of the seasons, they emerge with a new-found understanding of nature and a respect for the honeybee and the threats it faces.

From taking a bullet for a frightened schoolgirl in Alabama to riding on the bonnet of a tank during the liberation of France, each of the hard-drinking, chain-smoking clerics featured in Priests de la Résistance were willing to give their lives for a world they believed in - even as their superiors beckoned them to safety. In this spellbinding new collection, the Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie, bestselling author of A Field Guide to the English Clergy, presents fifteen men and women who dared to stand up to fascism, proving that some hearts will never be conquered.

As a rousing Strauss piece is reaching its crescendo in Maningpool Civic Hall, the talented yet obnoxious conductor Sir Noel Grampian is shot dead in full view of the Municipal Orchestra and the audience. It was no secret that he had many enemies - musicians and music critics among them - but to be killed mid-flow suggests an act of the coldest calculation. Told through the letters and documents sent by DI Alan Hope to his wife as he puzzles through the dauntingly vast pool of suspects and scant physical evidence in the case.

Art expert Emma Lindhal is anxious when she's asked to appraise the antiques in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen, where a young woman was murdered nine years earlier, her killer never found. As she goes about her painstaking work and one shocking discovery yields clues that lead to another, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of the house and its occupants. When the lifeless body of another young woman is found in the icy waters surrounding the island, Detective Karl Rosén arrives to investigate.

Financial journalist Nicholas Shaxson first made his reputation studying the “resource curse,” seeing first-hand the disastrous economic and societal effects of the discovery of oil in Angola. He then gained prominence as an expert on tax havens, revealing the dark corners of that world long before the scandals of the Panama and Paradise Papers.

In late 15th century England, two young princes are given over by Merlin to the protection of their uncle, King Richard III. They soon vanish from sight, igniting tales of their demise at Richard’s hand and breeding unrest throughout the land. Nathanial Garrett, also known as Hellequin, is sent to London to decipher fact from rumor and uncovers a plot to replace the king. But his investigation quickly becomes personal when he learns that an old nemesis is involved.

With her new billionaire boss in town, Sophie's determined to swap the No-Jobs she meets on Tinder for her very own Steve Jobs. But will looking like a million dollars be enough to kick-start a Fifty Shades adventure? A ring in his pocket and dressed to kill, Calum's planning to get down on one knee. Though if Mia doesn't say 'yes', he's not sure he'll ever get back up. Julie's got a surprise for Mark - though it's something she's not even sure she wants.

Zoe knows that it wasn't really her fault. Of course it wasn't. But if she'd just grasped harder, run faster, lunged quicker, she might have saved him. And Edward doesn't really blame her, though his bitter words at the time still haunt her, and he can no more take them back than she can halt the car that killed their son. Two years on, every day is a tragedy. Edward knows they should take healing steps together, but he's tired of being shut out. For Zoe, it just seems easier to let grief lead the way.

Hakan, son of Haldan, chosen son of the lord of the Northern Jutes, swears loyalty to his father in fire, in iron and in blood. But when a terrible tragedy befalls Hakan's household, he is forced to leave his world behind and pledge his sword to a new king. Nameless and alone, he embarks on a journey to fulfil his destiny as a great warrior. Whispers of sinister forces in the north pull Hakan onwards to a kingdom plagued by mysterious and gruesome deaths.

1957. A catastrophe occurs at the pharmaceutical lab in Coventry where 16-year-old Wilf is working for the summer. A catastrophe that needs to be covered up at all costs. 2017. Phiney is shocked by the death of her grandfather, Wilf, who has jumped from a railway bridge at a Coventry station. Journalist Mat Torrington is the only witness. Left in utter disbelief, with a swarm of unanswered questions, Phiney, Mat and Wilf's wife, Dora, begin their own enquiries into Wilf's death.

The festive season is in full swing - parties, champagne and Christmas crackers abound. You're having a breather at the hotel bar when a stunning young woman catches your eye. Could she really be interested in you? She flutters her eyelashes and takes your hand. Her Christmas party dress glitters with sequins. What you don't know is that your life is now in her hands - as she leads you up to her room there's only one thing that will determine whether you live or die. Are you a good person? Are you really?

Historian Archie Laverick, scarred mentally and physically by the Great War, travels to Berlin to research a famed Prussian general. His quiet study is shattered when he crosses paths with Esme Carmichael, a spirited young American intent on making her name as a foreign correspondent. When a shooting at a Saxon castle leaves a young Jewish woman accused of murder, Archie and Esme are drawn into a perilous hunt for the truth.

When ex-army officer and UNESCO archaeologist Max Hunter is sent to Normandy on the trail of England's missing crown jewels, he thinks he's in for a few easy weeks. But when the ancient Mont Saint-Michel abbey is attacked by gunmen, Hunter and his research assistant Lauren Lane are forced to flee for their lives with a mysterious treasure chest hidden for centuries inside the abbey. After evading the assassins, Hunter and Lauren find something inside the chest with world-changing consequences.

2003. Kabul has become a frontier city, Afghanistan's fledgling democracy struggling with crime and corruption as NATO coalition troops, gangs and warlords jostle for control. When the body of a British serviceman is discovered in the city's infamous tank graveyard, the Kabul Police reach out for support in their investigation. Alasdair 'Mac' MacKenzie, formerly of the Metropolitan Police, is seconded to the team.

Being perceived as a threat or, worse, hunted as food makes an animal attack a unique ordeal. Suddenly you’re helpless, at its mercy. When an animal strikes it is lightning fast, determined and can’t be reasoned with. Often brutally violent, such an attack can leave horrific injuries, both physical and emotional that endure long after the encounter. In Bite Club, we meet brave people from around the world who have come face to face with sharks or other deadly predators and lived to tell the tale.

Nicole Sutton’s world has been turned upside down. Sixteen and suffering the fallout of a devastating family tragedy, she is forced to move away from her London home to the quiet town of Henley - and a new life she never wanted nor expected. In the dusty cellar of her strange new house, Nicole stumbles upon a worn old journal left behind by a previous occupant. Inside, through the eyes of a soldier named Mac, she finds herself drawn into a brutally honest memoir of the horrors of war and Auschwitz - and of the life and love Mac had to leave behind.

At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life. When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begin to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is…. Someone who wants vengeance.