Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

Written in 1881, ‘Winthrop’s Adventure’ is Vernon Lee’s first ghost story. Set in Florence, the story regales the story of young painter Julian Winthrop who becomes transfixed by a piece of music. He traces this haunting back to one of his previous paintings.

England 1321: Deep in the countryside lies an isolate village governed by a sinister regime of Owl Masters. But their dark status quo is disturbed by the arrival of a house of religious women. Why do their crops succeed when village crops fail, their cattle survive despite the plague? Accusations of witchcraft and heresy run rife, while the Owl Masters rain down hellfire and torment on the women, who must look to their faith to save them from the lengthening shadow of evil... a shadow with predatory, terrifying talons.

Every year the Grand National produces very different stories from jockeys and horses alike; uplifting scenes from a victor and heartbreak when a mere inch divides the loser from the winner at the end of nearly four-and-a-half miles and 30 challenging fences. The race has evolved over the years, but there is one constant: luck, or the lack of it. How fitting, then, that in 1839 the first winner was named Lottery.

‘The Bath-Chair’ tells the story of the Faraday siblings. Edmund is a shrewd businessman, priding himself on his impeccable health. His spinster sister, Alice, lives with him performing all domestic duties and despises him. When Edmund starts seeing a lame figure who looks startlingly like himself and his own health starts mysteriously declining, Alice revels in plotting his downfall.

Skeletons have a habit of revealing themselves eventually.... When a human skeleton is discovered on the boundary of a 20-year-old property development, it seems there are a large number of people who may know the identity of the corpse and how it got there. But 20 years is a long time, and those individuals were very different people back then. Skeletons are being revealed in all senses, and there are many prominent local figures who are beginning to feel uncomfortable and afraid.

Dear Uncle Morton, The McDougalls are here. Mr McDougall won’t stop shouting. He has lost three sheep in a week. Now he wants to take your dragons away. Eddie has yet more trials by fire. This time, he’s dragonsitting on his uncle’s remote Scottish island home, getting some unexpected birthday party guests and taking the dragons with him on his half-term trip to London. What can possibly go wrong?

Eddie was given a dragon's egg by his uncle for his last birthday, and one day he notices a crack in it. Soon the egg breaks open, and out comes a very unusual creature. Just as Eddie and Emily are trying to cope with this new arrival, their mum announces that she has a surprise of her own. In their ninth adventure, Eddie and Emily get the biggest surprise of their lives!

A successful British television producer who fancies himself a Hollywood mogul, Sam Jackson makes enemies easily and delights in the fact. It is no great surprise that such a man should meet a violent death. Detective Chief Superintendent Lambert and Detective Sergeant Hook deduce that the person who killed him is almost certainly to be found among the company of actors who are shooting a series of detective mysteries in rural Herefordshire.

What do you do when your wife takes your child and leaves you alone in a city of ghosts? Dutch banker Hans ver den Broek chooses cricket. But New York cricket is a long way from the tranquil sport he grew up with. It's a rough, almost secret game, played in scrubby marginal urban parks by people the city doesnt see - people like Chuck Ramkissoon.

Charlie Cooper, a member of the covert Group Fifteen, travels to Israel to find his estranged half-brother, Freddy, who has mysteriously disappeared. Freddy's ties to NetGuardian, a cybersecurity firm implicated in dubious activities, propel Cooper into a dangerous web of corporate espionage, state-of-the-art surveillance technology, and the ruthless world of intelligence.

A cure for Alzheimer’s would be worth billions. And well worth killing for. Simon Ayot is an Englishman working for Revere Partners, one of Boston’s top venture-capital firms. The firm’s star investment, worth millions of dollars for each of its partners, is BioOne, which is working on a cure for the disease. Frank, one of Simon’s bosses and his father-in-law, is found murdered at his summer house in the marshes, and Simon is in the frame. To stay alive, and to save his marriage, Simon must figure out who killed Frank. And who will be the next to die.

It is 2002 and Private Investigator Makana is shaken out of his grief when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl. In a country where honour killings are commonplace and the authorities turn a blind eye, Makana determines to track down the perpetrator. Seeking answers in the dead girl’s past he travels to Siwa, where an old enemy lurks in the shadows. Makana discovers that the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet.

A house full of academics should imply calm and quiet, but much to housekeeper Harriet Rowsley's dismay some of the guests seem to have problems with the estate's unconventional practices and aren't afraid of voicing their concerns. Having Harriet and her husband and interim estate manager Matthew as the hosts of Thorncroft House, while his lordship is ill, is obviously not to everyone's taste! But Harriet won't let their opinions get in the way of running the household. She and her husband seem to have things under control until a series of unusual accidents occur around them.

Addressing the phenomenal success of Bohemian Rhapsody, acclaimed music journalist Mark Blake builds on the legend of Queen and their enduring audience appeal. Providing a fresh, unparalleled take on Queen's music, story and legacy, Blake's complete portrait covers not only the major hits and bestselling albums, but also the inside stories behind the music.

Rome has lost its greatest warrior; Aulus Cornelius is dead. Although he is hailed as a hero, the betrayal by cowardly governor Flaminus is not forgotten. Aulus' death has left his sons with grave responsibilities. While Titus swears vengeance against Flaminus, and to become as great a general as his father, Quintus chooses to pursue politics - under the guidance of Lucius Falerius, now the most powerful senator in Rome. Despite his fortune, Lucius is haunted by the prophecy that binds his fate to Aulus'. As he trains his son, Marcellus, he manipulates the Cornelius family to his own ends.

Ben Jewell has hit a breaking point. His 10-year-old son, Jonah, has severe autism, and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope. When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father. In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk, two who won't - are thrown together.

Eight days before the summer solstice, a man is butchered in a blood-freezing sacrifice on the ancient site of Stonehenge before a congregation of robed worshippers. Within hours, one of the world's foremost treasure hunters has shot himself in his country mansion. And to his estranged son, young archaeologist Gideon Chase, he leaves a cryptic letter...

When Max Brennan’s estranged father and then his own girlfriend go missing in quick succession, he turns to his old friend Detective Jake Porter for help. As Max is then attacked in his own home, Porter and his partner Nick Styles waste no time in investigating. But when their main suspect turns up dead, alongside a list of other targets, it seems the case is much bigger than it first appeared. With events spiralling, can Porter and Styles catch the killer before another victim is claimed?

When an epidemic outbreak occurs, the most physical and financial harm historically falls upon the people who can least afford it: the economically and socially marginalized. Where people live and work, how they commute and socialize, and more have a huge impact on the risks we bear during an outbreak. In The Rich Flee and the Poor Take the Bus, economist Troy Tassier examines examples ranging from the 430 BCE plague of Athens to the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate why marginalized groups bear the largest burden of epidemic costs-and how to avoid these systemic failures in the future.

Makana, a former police inspector who fled from Sudan to Cairo, lives on a rickety Nile houseboat. When the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi hires him to track down a missing person, Makana is in no position to refuse him. Hanafi is the owner of Cairo’s star-studded football team; his most valuable player has just vanished and Adil Romario’s disappearance threatens to bring down not only Hanafi’s private empire but the entire country. But why should the city’s most powerful man hire its lowliest private detective?