Showing results by narrator "Simon Slater" in All Categories

Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known to herself, Jack’s widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day’s outing, this Booker Prize-winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.

When the lawyers of alleged war criminal Hannibal Strauss are caught up in a terror attack in The Hague, barrister Michael Devlin immediately suspects all is not what it seems. Teaming up once more with Agent Joe Dempsey, they must find who’s behind it all before any more innocent lives are lost.

The Chemin, also known as the Camino de Santiago, is a centuries-old pilgrim route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Every year, thousands of walkers - some devout, many not - follow the route that wends through quaint small villages and along busy highways alike, a journey unlike any other. Zoe, an artist from California who’s still reeling from her husband’s sudden death, has impulsively decided to walk the Camino, hoping to find solace and direction. Martin, an engineer from England, is road-testing a cart of his own design…and recovering from a messy divorce.

The twenty-fourth, and final, book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams. Finally the end has been reached as the Australians look towards the future. The Australians have reached a time of technological advance that features steam power of ships and auto mobiles becoming the preferable personal transportation for the wealthy Australians. Australia becomes Australia as we know it today.

A Dedicated Man is the second novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Gallows View. Near the village of Helmthorpe, Swainsdale, the body of a well-liked local historian is found half-buried under a dry stone wall. Harry Steadman has been brutally murdered. But who would want to kill such a thoughtful, dedicated man? Chief Inspector Alan Banks is called in to investigate and soon discovers that disturbing secrets lie behind the apparently bucolic facade.

Receiving letters by post or via e-mail has always been important to me. Even now I feel slightly disappointed if the postman passes the door without anything for me, even though I know the chances are it will be a bill, a parking fine, a bank statement or a catalogue offering me clothing or garden furniture. The same applies when my inbox is empty save for someone offering a deal on a used car or urging me to change my energy provider.

If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal? Moscow 1945. As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead. But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia’s most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow. Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?

In Rise Like Lions, Booker Prize winning writer Ben Okri has compiled a collection of poems that celebrate the many voices of politics, from polemics and rallying cries to lyrics and meditations. Many of these poems have resonated with readers over lifetimes and through generations, from William Blake to Marvin Gaye. In exploring the impact political poems have on ideas, vision, protest, change and truth, Okri demonstrates how the need for this strand of poetry is as great as it has ever been, and its inspiration just as powerful.

The twenty-third book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams. A new century has dawned as Australia forms their country. New hopes characterise the lives of the young Australians. Some had to the Outback in search of gold and glory. Others find their fulfilment in politics and seize power in the newly-formed country. Some are even moving north to conquer new lands.

Set in Northfield, an understaffed military psychiatric hospital immediately before the NHS is founded, Walking Wounded is the story of a doctor and his patient: David Reece, a young journalist-to-be whose wartime experiences in Burma have come back to haunt him violently; and Daniel Carter, one of the senior psychiatrists, a man who is fighting his own battles as well as those of his patients.

The twenty-second book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams. Australia is back to fighting with the British against the Boers in South Africa. Sloan Shannon are amongst those fighting against the Boers. He is wounded and captured, but finds himself saved by a Boar nurse. Suddenly, he must flee with her to her people – those people that he thought was his enemies.

In 1849, Hull is a city forgotten and abandoned, in the grip of a cholera outbreak that sees its poorest citizens cut down by the cartload. Into this world of flame and grief comes Mesach Stone, a former soldier lost upon his way. He's been hired as bodyguard by a Canadian academic hunting for the bones of the apostle Simon the Zealot, rumoured to lie somewhere in Lincolnshire. Stone can't see why ancient bones are of interest in a world full of them...but then a woman he briefly loved is killed.

Krakow, 1585. Summoned by the King of Poland to help save his dying niece, Edward Kelley and his master, alchemist and scholar Dr John Dee, discover a dark secret at the heart of The Countess Bathory’s malady. But perhaps the cure will prove more terrifying than the alternative...England, 2013Jackdaw Hammond lives in the shadows, a practitioner and purveyor of occult materials. But when she learns of a young woman found dead on a train, her body covered in arcane symbols, there’s no escaping the attention of police consultant Felix Guichard.

Wednesday's Child is the sixth novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Past Reason Hated. When two social workers, investigating reports of child abuse, appear at Brenda Scupham's door, her fear of authority leads her to comply meekly with their requests. Even when they say that they must take her seven-year old daughter, Gemma, away for tests.... It is only when they fail to return Gemma the following day that Brenda realises something has gone terribly wrong.

Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just 20 years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.

Paris, 1920. When Coco Chanel meets Igor Stravinsky, the exiled composer accepts the wealthy designer's offer to bring his family to summer at her villa. Soon she and her guest embark upon an affair which is complicated by their rigid devotion to their work, and Stravinsky's commitment to his family. The two lovers must consider the depth of their feelings, and whether, with the autumn drawing in, theirs is a relationship that can survive.

You are about to discover the secrets of The Quick – But first you must travel to Victorian Yorkshire, and there, on a remote country estate, meet a brother and sister alone in the world and bound by tragedy. In time, you will enter the rooms of London’s mysterious Aegolius Club – a society of some of the richest, most powerful men in fin-de-siecle England. And at some point – we cannot say when – these worlds will collide.

In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An antinuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent 'Dirty Dick' Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of Maggie's Farm, an isolated house high on the daleside.

One foggy night, Deborah Harrison is found lying in the churchyard behind St Mary's, Eastvale. She has been strangled with the strap of her own school satchel. But Deborah was no typical 16-year-old. Her father was a powerful financier who moved in the highest echelons of industry, defence and classified information. And Deborah, it seemed, enjoyed keeping secrets of her own....

Playing with Fire is the 14th novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from The Summer That Never Was. In the early hours of a cold January morning, two narrow boats catch fire on the dead-end stretch of the Eastvale canal. When signs of accelerant are found at the scene, DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are summoned. But by the time they arrive, only the smouldering wreckage is left, and human remains have been found on both boats.