Showing results by narrator "Damian Lynch" in All Categories

He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that. Things do not happen quite as he imagined—the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return, he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family. Twenty years later, the barriers come down in Zanzibar and he is able and compelled to go back.

Generous, funny and wise, this collection is the perfect introduction to the storyteller described as ‘one of Africa’s most important living writers’; whose work, now spanning four decades, continues to spin wonder and magic while offering penetrating insight into exile, migration and homecoming.

An adventure story set in the Solomon Islands sees Jack and Toni, childhood schoolmates, set out on a routine boat trip to a neighbouring island, but things go awry when they discover, due to an oversight by Toni, that they do not have enough fuel to make the journey and are stranded at sea. At first they are optimistic that they will be rescued within hours, but as the first days draw to an end they slowly begin to realise that the mistake has left them in serious jeopardy and they can see no end but their own demise in sight. 

London. A newspaper editor is horrifically murdered, his death quickly followed by a series of more brutal and often bizarre slayings. The police are baffled, the only clear link between the murders being a single blood-red rose left at the scene of every killing. Why? What does the rose mean? What connects the killer to each bloody corpse? Scotland Yard detective Alan Winters leads a hunt for the elusive prey.

Liv knows what kind of boy her grandson is. She knows Seb would never do anything to hurt his girlfriend, Izzy. But could the shadow cast by his father be influencing the boy she loves? Caitlyn, Izzy’s mother, is desperate to reach her daughter, but she only seems to push her further away. Can she help her daughter or are Caitlyn's own demons standing in the way? When an inappropriate photo of Izzy is shared online, no one is prepared for the ripples that threaten to tear their lives apart. Will the truth come out before it's too late? Or is the damage already done?

How do you identify a ruthless killer when you can’t even recognise your own face in a mirror? Returning to work following an accident, Detective Inspector Ray Patrick refuses to disclose he now lives with face blindness - an inability to recognise faces. As Ray deceives his team, he is pulled into a police operation that targets an international trade in human organs. And when he attempts to bring the organisation down, Ray is witness to a savage murder. But it’s a killer he will never remember.

1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance. And tonight they have a new recruit—Manu, a nineteen-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war. Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, Manu hopes to reinvent himself. But no matter how fast he flies, trouble always seems to follow closely behind... 

For the crew of the Keiko, their stay at the Grand House casino on New Samara was supposed to be a well-deserved rest. It didn't last. Captain Ichabod Drift promised that the side trip to the mining planet Uragan would be a quick in and out - a data retrieval job then back to the tables. He was wrong. When the revolution comes, all you can do is choose a side and hope to get out alive.

Afghanistan, 2009. Eighteen-year-old squaddie Briggsy is just three weeks into his first posting in Helmand Province and he's thrilled to be part of the action. But when his Rifle Section loses a man in battle, Briggsy is forced to confront the realities of war. Also included is the fascinating interview with Andy McNab, in which he speaks to Jo Fidgen about his childhood, military career and writing.

Disabled with polio from the neck down aged 5, Mark Esho was told he would never walk again. Although he partially recovered, he had to battle against an abusive father and discrimination as a black and disabled person. But not only did he survive, Mark thrived! In an extraordinary story that starts with polio, discrimination, adversity, racism, abandonment and child abuse, Mark takes us through his amazing achievements, from working as a senior manager for a charity and creating several successful businesses, to winning awards and gaining his Masters Degree in Administration.

When the body of a woman is found stabbed to death, the blame falls to her twin sister. But who killed who? And which one is now the woman behind bars? Zara and Miranda have always supported each other. But then Zara meets Seb, and everything changes. Handsome, charismatic and dangerous, Seb threatens to tear the sisters’ lives apart - but is he really the one to blame? Or are deeper resentments simmering beneath the surface that the sisters must face up to?

A financially comfortable but troubled young London author, Alex Hargreaves stumbles across the work of an unknown writer from the early 1990s, Vernon Crane, and, presuming the missing Crane is dead, decides to pass the work off as his own. The problem is that the novel he wishes to plagiarise has been split among Crane's disparate and scattered group of friends....

A young woman is found dead in her bedroom surrounded by rose petals - the latest victim of 'The Lover'. Struggling under the weight of an internal investigation, DI Dominic Bell is no closer to discovering the identity of the killer, and time is running out. As the murders escalate, Clementine Starke joins an online true-crime group determined to take justice in their own hands - to catch the killer before the police.

Professor Hakim Adi draws on a variety of published works in Black Voices on Britain, all of which describe powerful experiences: James Gronniosaw and his family endure poverty, illness and unemployment; Mary Prince is driven out by her cruel owners and turns to London charities for help; Frederick Douglass, on a lecture tour around Britain, reveals how the Christian clergy built churches with slave-owners’ money and William Wells Brown gives his impressions of England as he travels around a country which welcomes him more readily than America. 

A Brock and Poole Mystery - On Christmas Day, Detective Chief Inspector Brock’s celebrations are interrupted when he is called to a murder at Heathrow Airport. Kerry Hammond was due to fly out to New York with her husband - but never made it further than the car park. Brock and his sidekick, DS Dave Poole, put Kerry’s husband at the top of their suspect list, but the case becomes increasingly complex, and they find themselves embroiled in a complex case of smuggling that stretches from the South of France to Central London...

A Brock and Poole mystery - When MP Hugh Blakemore is shot dead near a bus stop in the Fulham Road, DCI Harry Brock and DS Dave Poole are assigned to the case. But there is a complication that, at first, misleads the detectives: Months previously, Blakemore killed an inmate when visiting a prison. Although Blakemore was exonerated, Brock is convinced that underworld characters have exacted revenge.…

Both harrowing and life-affirming, the final novel from Carnegie Medal-winning author Mal Peet is the sweeping coming-of-age adventure of a mixed race boy transported to North America. Born from a street liaison between a poor young woman and an African soldier in the 1900s, Beck is soon orphaned and sent to the Catholic Brothers in Canada. Shipped to work on a farm, his escape takes him across the continent in a search for belonging.

A Brock and Poole Mystery - DCI Harry Brock is called to a murder scene on Ham Common early on a Sunday morning. But it is far from being an ordinary sort of murder. The victim has been stabbed to death, locked in a wooden box and set alight. Brock and his assistant, DS Dave Poole, believe that there might be a connection to a gang, which leads them on a journey through Londons underworld...

Brock and Poole investigate a double murder and find themselves caught up in a crime with international implications.... Detective Chief Inspector Brock is called out to a burnt-out camper van in Richmond, Surrey. The van contained two badly burned and very dead bodies. At first thought to be an unfortunate fire, Brock and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Dave Poole, discover the truth: a double murder has been committed.

The UK is going to rack and ruin. There are strikes, the power facilities don't have enough technicians to continue running them, oppression and a terminal malaise afflicts the country and there seems no respite from the economic catastrophe. Then Bradley Ethan Murray opens a wormhole, a passage through to a new world and, potentially, a new world order. New Suffolk is available for all 'decent people' from the UK to start a new life - free from the troubles of the UK they will leave behind them.