Showing results by author "Alex Smith" in All Categories

Tineka Smith always knew that growing up Black in America meant certain restrictions. Don’t talk back to white people, expect to be stopped by the police, always be on your guard. So, when she moved to the UK - and fell in love with Alex Court, a white man - she wondered if things might be different. When Alex proposed to Tineka, it was the easiest decision in the world. What he didn’t anticipate was the reaction - sometimes subtle, sometimes overt - from friends and strangers alike.

Ian Softley is a killer. He's the man governments call when they want somebody dead. His is a life of intimidation and brutality, of beatings and executions—including, ultimately, his own. Jack Softley's life is a world away from his brother's. A high school English teacher, devoted father, and all-round nice guy, Jack tries to stay as far from trouble as possible. But when he receives word that Ian has been murdered, he finds himself dragged into a storm of violence and danger. Because the same people who killed his brother want him dead too.

Haunted by his inability to track down and save his missing wife, DCI Robert Kett leaves the Metropolitan Police behind and moves to Norwich with his three young children, hoping to heal their broken family. But his newfound peace doesn’t last. Two newspaper delivery girls have gone missing in the city, and the clues point to a serial kidnapper. Kett is dragged into the centre of one of the darkest cases of his career - a case that pits him head-to-head against a horrifying evil.

DCI Kett is back, heading Norfolk Constabulary’s brand-new Extreme Crime Task Force. And it’s just in time. The body of a woman bound in thorns has been discovered in Norwich’s historic Cow Tower. In her mouth is a severed finger wrapped in a scrap of red cloth, and the first few lines of a fairy tale. “Once upon a time, a young maiden waited to be saved from a hideous monster.” The finger belongs to another missing woman, and if Kett, Porter and Savage want to find her alive they must follow a chain of blood-drenched riddles, each victim leading to the next.

He will find the truth. Even if it kills him. Five months ago, DCI Robert Kett’s wife Billie was snatched from a London street. Five months of no leads, no evidence, and no suspects. Until now. When a routine police search uncovers a chamber of horrors beneath one of the city’s most expensive houses, detectives find a clue that points to Billie’s fate, and to the identity of her kidnapper - an enigmatic killer known as the Pig Man.

When Blake Barton opens the door to a stranger one morning, he comes face to face with an unimaginable evil. Because this stranger claims to be the devil, and he promises to kill Blake—not now, but in six days, six hours, and six minutes exactly. Plunged into a nightmare race to save his wife and young son, Blake finds himself fighting not only the stranger but an army of young men who call themselves the devil's disciples—men who will do anything to please their master. As time runs out, Blake realizes that in order to fight evil, he must find the devil inside himself.

When a young woman is brutally murdered in the Norfolk countryside, the locals blame Black Shuck - a legendary wild dog. There’s only one problem: The wounds weren’t made by an animal. DCI Robert Kett is battling a black dog of his own. With his wife still missing, and the injuries from his last case leaving him in constant pain, everything seems impossible - not least looking after his three young children.

In the middle of one of Norfolk’s most brutal winters, a frozen body is discovered on the legendary Stone of Lyng. With Robert Kett out of action, the case falls to DC Kate Savage and DI Pete Porter, and it quickly becomes clear to them that the young man wasn’t just killed—he was sacrificed. And he isn’t alone. Within a week, another dead man is found on one of Norfolk’s ancient stones with the same unthinkable mutilations. Somebody is acting out a ritual, and if Savage and Porter can’t stop them then many more people will die.

What if strategy could instead be clear, simple, bold, and even actually useful? That’s what No Bullsh*t Strategy is all about. It sweeps away all the garbled corporate nonsense and dry academic theorising to leave you with pure strategic sauce, which can be actioned right away. It’ll make you see your business in a totally new light, and effortlessly unlock insights you didn’t know you had in you. Even better, it makes strategy fun.

DCI Robert Kett’s efforts to return to a normal life are dashed after he receives a phone call from his mother, Mary—a woman he hasn’t spoken to in almost two decades. When she invites him and the girls to visit her in the isolated village where she has been staying, Kett sees an opportunity to heal their fractured relationship. But this is no family reunion. Mary Kett needs his help. A young couple have been brutally murdered and their newborn son is missing—a note left in his crib saying that the baby will die if the police are called.

Every time you hear his voice, another child will die. DCI Robert Kett’s family may be whole again, but he is a broken man. Suspended from duty, he takes his girls out of the city for a much-needed holiday on the Norfolk Coast. Instead of the peace he desperately needs, however, Kett finds a community in chaos. Four teenagers are missing, and time is running out before they meet a horrific fate. Kett must follow a deadly trail of clues left by the man who took them, the only person who knows where they are. There’s only one problem. The kidnapper is already dead.

For years, DCI Robert Kett has tracked down the country’s most dangerous kidnappers and serial killers, earning a reputation as the best man to call to catch the worst men. The tables are about to turn.

A geriatrics and palliative care podcast for every health care professional. We invite the brightest minds in geriatrics, hospice, and palliative care to talk about the topics that you care most about, ranging from recently published research in the field to controversies that keep us up at night. You'll laugh, learn and maybe sing along. Hosted by Eric Widera and Alex Smith. CME available!

Do you know about The Grumpus? And his Dastardly, Dreadful Christmas Plan? And about the Awful Thing that happened at the North Pole on Christmas Eve? Perhaps I should tell you about it.... This heartwarming story follows the adventures of an unlikely hero as he journeys to the North Pole, unwittingly and somewhat reluctantly making lots of new friends along the way.

When the tyrannical family patriarch Sir Ignatious Gristle is murdered on his 90th birthday at his country estate, every one of his gathered family members is a suspect. Trapped by a snowstorm with no way to contact the police, it's up to his mettlesome granddaughter, Edna, and her trusted tortoise, Charles Darwin, to determine whodunnit!

Currently, the top rate you can earn from a nationally available savings account in the U.S. is 0.50 percent. On the one hand, this means that saving $10,000 will leave you with $10,511 after ten years–a mere 5 percent increase. On the other hand, with the inflation rate at 6.2 percent, this means that you are losing 5.7 percent of your money every year in real terms.

Do you know about The Grumpus? And his Dastardly, Dreadful Christmas Plan? And about the Awful Thing that happened at the North Pole on Christmas Eve? Perhaps I should tell you about it.... This heartwarming story follows the adventures of an unlikely hero as he journeys to the North Pole, unwittingly and somewhat reluctantly making lots of new friends along the way.

As a child, did you hide under your blankets when you were scared of the dark? After listening to some of the scariest stories from new and up-and-coming authors, we won’t blame you if you start hiding again. Take a journey with us into the twisted mind of horror. “The Fallout” travels through the unknown, while “Feast” will make you never want to love again. Listen to these and many more stories to know what it truly means to be afraid of the dark.

Harmon Tomeral and his friends wanted nothing more than to go to space, and they have beaten the odds, time and again. They developed a mech and won the Top Fleet Marine Competition. They brought back a battlecruiser from an unknown system and made it their own. They made allies who helped them achieve great victories, and they ultimately founded new colonies in what has become known as the Salvage System.

Some 100,000 soldiers fought in the April 1862 battle of Shiloh, and nearly 20,000 men were killed or wounded; more Americans died on that Tennessee battlefield than had died in all the nation's previous wars combined. In the first book in his new series, Steven E. Woodworth has brought together a group of superb historians to reassess this significant battle and provide in-depth analyses of key aspects of the campaign and its aftermath.