Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

In the mid-1990s, Kevin Keegan brought sporting romance and expectation of trophies to Newcastle, Sunderland moved the the Stadium of Light backed by a wealthy consortium, Middlesbrough signed one of the best Brazilians of the era and won their first major trophy - even little Darlington had a former safe-cracker turned kitchen magnate in charge, promising the world. The region even provided England's two key players in Euro 96 in Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne - the far corner seemed destined to become the centre of England's footballing world. But it never happened.

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a

Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but only if we skip it. Fasting is a wonderfully healthy state. When we fast our insulin levels fall, as do our blood sugar, triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Most usefully, when we fast we lose weight. But what do too many of us do on waking? We break that lovely gift of fasting - we literally breakfast - and we eat, so courting type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, strokes, hypertension, dementia and cancers of the liver, breast, pancreas and uterus.

When Stella Swift is discovered holding a shard of broken glass near her newborn baby boy, fears that she might harm William result in her being taken to Catcombe - the local asylum. Although the regime is not as harsh as it once was, it's not somewhere that Tom wants to send his wife - but he has no choice. Turning to his kind-hearted sister-in-law Grace for help taking care of his other three children whilst he keeps working at the mine seems like the simplest solution until Stella is well - if only there wasn't the shared history between Tom and Grace....

In his Cornish hideaway, retired Detective Inspector Frank Elder's solitary life is disturbed by a call from his estranged wife, telling him his 17-year-old daughter, Katherine, is running wild, unbalanced by a rape he feels he should have prevented. Meanwhile, in London, the capture of a violent criminal goes badly wrong, and Detective Sergeant Maddy Birch is uneasy about the reasons why, an uneasiness that is compounded when she starts to believe she is being stalked.

For merchant bankers, success means secrecy; passwords and code names ensure conversations stay private. However, they reckoned without London cabbies Terry, Len, and 'Einstein', who know the rewards of keeping their ears pricked and their noses in The FT. Making money fast is their object, as Len's daughter Poppy is losing her struggle with Cystic Fibrosis. While scheming to give Poppy a chance of survival, they become embroiled in a murder and the politics of their target bank, Skidder Barton.

A beautiful death. A perfect murder. A sexual predator is at large on the streets of Imperial Vienna and Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt appeals to his friend, psychoanalyst Dr. Max Liebermann, for assistance. Early signs indicate that the killer is no ordinary 'lust murderer' but an entirely new phenomenon, his particular deviance revealing the darker preoccupations of the age.

Jenny Simmons has always thought of herself as the ugly duckling of her family, so when she blossoms into a swan, she’s not quite sure what to do. When amateur boxer Bryn Thompson walks into her life, it seems happiness really is possible. But then a well-kept family secret rears its ugly head, a secret that could put her very life in danger.... Helen Hall, a newly qualified doctor, may just be able to help her, but will she risk the job she loves in order to do it?

Much-loved Calleshire research chemist Derek Tridgell has been ill for some time. On his deathbed, his incessant but unintelligible mutterings culminate in a cry of murder. Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby are brought in to investigate whether these are just the ramblings of a man at death's door or a real confession at the final hour. Their enquiries uncover three tragic deaths that may be linked to the deceased's last words: an accidental drowning at a rival chemist manufacturer, an old friend of Derek's killed in a caving expedition and his son walking away unscathed from a fatal car accident. It’s a complex case for Sloan and Crosby.

Much has changed since Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police and hard-nosed Jerusalem detective Arieh Ben-Roi last met. Ben-Roi is about to become a father, and Khalifa is struggling with personal tragedies. But as they each work on their own - seemingly isolated - cases, the two investigations begin to entwine. They soon find themselves drawn into a sinister web of violence, abuse, corporate malpractice and anti-capitalist terrorism. And at the heart of the web lies the Labyrinth...

A body is found in the woods.... Based on the true story of the shocking murder of Mrs Caroline Luard, which took place in Kent in August 1908. Caroline Luard is shot dead in broad daylight in the grounds of a large country estate. With few clues available, her husband soon becomes the suspect... but is he guilty? Bringing to life the people involved in this terrible crime, in A Dreadful Murder best-selling author Minette Walters uses modern detective skills to attempt to solve a 100-year-old crime.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of National Service, Historian Dr. Colin Shindler has interviewed a wide range of ex-conscripts, from all backgrounds, across all ranks, and spanning the entire fourteen years that peacetime conscription lasted, and captured their memories in this engrossing book. From them, we experience the tension of a postwar Berlin surrounded by Russians, the exotic heat and colour of Tripoli in 1948, the brief but intense flashpoint of the Suez Crisis, and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. Inspired by the unsolved Peasenhall murder case of 1902, 'Blind Man’s Hood' shows Carter Dickson’s penchant for true crime. When Rodney Hunter and his wife, Muriel, arrive late to a Christmas party in rural Kent, they are unsettled to find the isolated stately home open and empty of guests. While they await the party’s return, they are welcomed in by a mysterious hostess who regales them with the dark legend of Jane Waycross.

Amy Snowden, in middle age, has long since settled into a lonely life in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw, until - to her neighbours' surprise - she suddenly marries a much younger man. Months later Amy is found dead - apparently by her own hand - and her husband, Wright, has disappeared. Sergeant Caleb Cluff - silent, watchful, a man at home in the bleak moorland landscape of Gunnarshaw - must find the truth about the couple's unlikely marriage and solve the riddle of Amy's death.

Homo Sapiens tells the story of the species from its earliest evolutions through the development of the first civilizations up to the industrial and information revolutions that have shaped the modern age. William Potter's thrilling new account asks us to reconsider our traditional notions of history by examining the power of the environment, the influence of language, the ideas that have transformed society, the power of transformative technology, and much, much more.

While attending a lavish masked ball in Venice, retired Scotland Yard Detective Jasper has a shock when, at the midnight démasqué, he spots a woman whose accidental death he investigated in England three years ago. Even more stunned than Jasper is the woman's husband, Lord Bantham, who has since remarried, not to mention his new wife who sees her acquired position and wealth slip away. Then there are her old friends who all seem to have known more about the 'accident' than they ever let on. Then, the resurrected lady is found dead the next morning.

France, 1963. Taken out of his home town as part of a nationwide “initiative”, Inspector Lucas Rocco finds himself in the village of Poissons-Les-Marais, Picardie – and answerable to his former army CO Francois Massin. On his first day he finds a murdered woman wearing a Gestapo uniform lying in a British military cemetery. When the body is removed from the mortuary before Rocco can finish his investigation, he traces the paperwork to the dead woman’s father, industrialist Philippe Bayer-Berbier.

Barbara Roberts, pretty, mischievous and 17, has grown up wanting for nothing. But a long-buried family secret that threatens her happiness is about to be uncovered. Will it deny her the one man she truly loves? And outside of the close-knit mining community of Hillsbridge, war once again looms on the horizon. Youngest of the Hall clan, fate is about to propel Barbara into maturity....

Four strangers arrive at the solicitors’ office of Puckle, Puckle, and Nunnery. They have never met and have no idea why they have been invited. But they - along with a missing man - are descendants of the late Algernon George Culver Mayton, the inventor of 'Mayton’s Marvellous Mixture', and each entitled to a portion of the Mayton fortune. But before they can split the money, the missing man must be found. They begin their search, but then Detective Sloan receives a call that one of the legatees has died following an attack of food poisoning....

By the Booker-shortlisted author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour; a wittily observed slice of modern life as it plumbs the gulf between nostalgia and reality. Who is the Roundabout Man? He doesn't look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children's books. When Quinn's reclusive existence is invaded, he has to face his past, and the uncomfortable truth of who he really is.