Showing results by narrator "Michael Page" in All Categories

Lord and Lady Baaden-Boomethistle have been in residence for some weeks now, and the villagers are hoping for a return to the good old days, when the lord of the manor sprinkled benefits across the village like fairy dust. Father Max Tudor's invitation to dinner at the Hall comes as a welcome novelty; it will be his first time meeting the famous family that once held sway in the area.

Newly returned from investigating a murder in Monkslip-super-Mare, former M15 agent Max Tudor wants nothing more than to settle back into his predictable routine as vicar of St. Edwold's Church in the village of Nether Monkslip. But the flow of his sermon on Bathsheba is interrupted when Lady Duxter is found dead after having made a suicide pact with her lover. Lady Duxter's husband rallies quickly from the double tragedy - too quickly, it is murmured in the village. Having already planned a writer's retreat at his manor house, he insists the show must go on.

Vicar Max Tudor, reveling in his new-found personal happiness with Awena Owen, feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. With Awena away, he looks forward to a dinner that includes newcomers to the village like West End dramatist Thaddeus Bottle and his downtrodden wife Melinda. But when one of the dinner guests is found dead in the pre-dawn hours, Max knows a poisonous atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip.

Even before Jack the Ripper haunted its streets for prey, London's East End had earned a reputation for immorality, filth, and vice. John Bennett, a writer and tour guide who has walked and researched the area for more than 30 years, delves into four centuries of history to chronicle the crimes, their perpetrators, and the circumstances that made the East End an ideal breeding ground for illegal activity.

Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead. Just like the living citizens, the dead need a king - after all, the king is God’s representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are. And so it comes to pass that Marius is banished to the surface with one message: If he wants to recover his life he must find the dead king.

On an uncharted South Pacific island, the mad genius Doctor Moreau has found refuge. It’s here, away from London and the civilized world, that the scientist can conduct his experiments on animals without condemnation. When Edward Prendick, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, washes ashore, he bears witness to Moreau’s cruel research and its bloody, inevitable unraveling. In exploring the disquieting crossroads of scientific progress and ethical responsibility, Wells’s cautionary account about the perversion of natural order rattles audiences’ sensibilities to this day.

In October 1941, the British Admiralty based a surface strike force in Malta to attack Axis sea lanes between Italy and Africa. Aided by Ultra intelligence, submarines, and bombers based in Malta, this force dominated the Central Mediterranean. From the end of October through the middle of December 1941, less than a third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel finally compelled the Afrika Korps to retreat 400 miles. Then, in the space of 30 hours, this all changed. 

In a unique combination of innovative style and thorough scholarship, Warlords tells the story of World War II through the lives of the four great war leaders: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. While their nations fought battles with weapons, the four warlords of the twentieth century fought a war of the mind. Structured along the lines of a cinematic thriller, rapidly cutting from one man to the next, the book takes us blow by blow as they try to outthink and outfight each other. 

Just what happened when the Time Machine returned? Having acquired a device for themselves, the brutish Morlocks return from the desolate far future to Victorian England to cause mayhem and disruption. But the mythical heroes of Old England have also returned, in the hour of the country’s greatest need, to stand between England and her total destruction.

The powers of magic in the Isles have flooded to a thousand-year peak, and even local magicians can perform powerful spells normally beyond their control. Fantastic forces from all angles threaten, trying to keep Garric and his companions apart to thwart the reunification of the Isles. Now the world itself has suffered a magical upheaval. The ocean has receded and the Isles have become the higher ground of a newly formed continent.

In the summer of 1913, under the cover of London’s perpetual smoggy dusk, two brilliant minds are pitted against each other - a celebrated gentleman thief and a talented Scotland Yard detective - in the greatest jewel heist of the new century. An exquisite strand of pale pink pearls, worth more than the Hope Diamond, has been bought by a Hatton Garden broker. Word of the “Mona Lisa of Pearls” spreads around the world, captivating jewelers as well as thieves.

Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside. Her father has been dead for years. Her brothers have been conscripted into the Tsar's army and taken as servants in the house of the local wealthy landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food. But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family destined to visit the Tsar in St. Petersburg - a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena's age.

Until the end of the Cold War in 1990, the RAF had several major bases worldwide—largely in those areas where the service had been based during the inter-war years. In Cold War Boys Overseas, contributors recall their time at these foreign destinations. With almost half of RAF personnel serving abroad in the 1960s situated throughout Germany, the book starts its focus there with tales of monitoring the Soviet threat.

In the world of the Isles, the elemental forces of magic are rising to a thousand-year peak. A small band of companions has set forth across a world in the process of transformation in search of their destinies. Now their epic adventure continues.

Since time before time, two opposing forces have been locked in an endless battle: It is the war between magic and reason—between what if and what is. And the victor will not just shape the future but the very nature of reality. Peter Nimble and Sophie Quire have spent the last four years fighting to protect a world of magic from the insidious, unstoppable forces of “progress.” But, every day, the wonders that once surrounded them are vanishing. Lurking behind this transformation is a mysterious group called The League of Maps that seems to hold the answers.

In the fall of 1888, Jack the Ripper slaughtered five prostitutes in London's seamy Whitechapel District. He did not just kill - he ripped with a butcher's glee - and then, after the particularly gruesome slaying of Mary Jane Kelly, he disappeared. For 127 years, Jack has haunted the dark corners of our imagination, the paradigm of the psychotic killer. We remember him not only for his crimes, but because, despite one of the biggest dragnets in London history, he was never caught.

In The Red Mirror, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova uses social identity theory to explain Putin's leadership. The main source of Putin's political influence, she finds, lies in how he articulates the shared collective perspective that unites many Russian citizens. Under his tenure, the Kremlin's media machine has tapped into powerful group emotions of shame and humiliation - derived from the Soviet transition in the 1990s - and has politicized national identity to transform these emotions into pride and patriotism.

This book analyzes the evolution of Russian military thought and how Russia's current thinking about war is reflected in recent crises. What Jonsson reveals is that Russia's conception of the very nature of war is now changing, as Russian elites see information warfare and political subversion as the most important ways to conduct contemporary war. Since information warfare and political subversion are below the traditional threshold of armed violence, this has blurred the boundaries between war and peace. 

More than 2,000 men, women, and children are on board. Here on the first-class promenade is millionaire John Jacob Astor, who hopes his return from Egypt with his pregnant teen bride will invite a minimum of media attention. And here, in the third-class common room, a beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to family in Florida, discovers first love. And there in the distance, shrouded in darkness, an ancient iceberg lies patient, awaiting its encounter.

Martin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today. Living I Was Your Plague explores how Luther carefully crafted his own image and how he has been portrayed in his own times and ours, painting a unique portrait of the man who set in motion a revolution that sundered Western Christendom.