Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

It is 1896. In an alternative history where Babbage’s difference engines have become commonplace, Captain Charles Maddox, wrongly convicted of a murder and newly arrested for treason, is rescued from execution by a covert agency called the Map Room. Maddox is given the choice of taking his chances with the authorities or joining the Map Room as an agent and helping them uncover a possible conspiracy surrounding the 1888 Ripper murders. Seeing little choice, Maddox accepts the offer and joins the team of fellow agents Church and Green.

When the snow thaws on London’s Hampstead Heath after a harsh winter, a ghoulish discovery is made that marks the start of a very dangerous case for Detective Inspector Harry Vicary. The body of a man is found on top of a shallow grave containing the battered remains of a young woman. There are no suspicious marks on his corpse and he appears to have frozen to death in a case of misadventure. But what is his connection to the remains below?

On a hot summer morning, Miles Law cycles into the village of Millington in the Vale of York, on his way to a few hours' work as an under-gardener at The Grange. But when he arrives, he finds his employer slumped in an armchair in the drawing room, a bullet wound on his forehead. Miles' employer was a secretive and reclusive man who kept his employees and neighbours at a distance. Who was Anthony Garrett, and who are the three young, identical-looking blonde women who called at the house a few days before his body was discovered?

The plague has struck London once again but so has opportunity for theatre company Lord Westfield’s Men. Invited to perform at the wedding celebrations of Sophia Magdalena, the fair maid of Bohemia, the company’s bookholder Nicholas Bracewell and his acting troupe begin the long journey across Europe. Confident they will arrive safely and deliver Lord Westfield’s secret missive to an alchemist in the Imperial Court, Nicholas is unaware what danger travels with them.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. 'It’s a very rare thing for a murder to be committed actually in the presence of a police officer.' Or so it was thought.... After the police fail to trace the writer behind a series of threatening letters to wealthy industrialist Sir Charles Leighton, he demands constant police protection. And thus it is up to Inspector Lang to accompany the man to a bridge party on New Year’s Eve - and track down his killer....

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him further insight into human behavior. Presented through Swift's satiric hall of distorting mirrors, mankind is cast as diminished, magnified, and bestial - the composite of which is an uncompromising reflection of human nature.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. Each year the Christmas card arrives from 'Leech', an unknown member of Timothy Trent’s family asking for money in return for their silence. But this year he’s determined to find out who is behind the cruel Christmas request and put an end to it once and for all....

Sherlock Holmes has left the Baker Street days of crime and detection behind to retire to a small Sussex cottage overlooking the sea where he can focus on his new hobbies: beekeeping and photography. But when a shadowy figure is seen walking below the cliffs one night, Holmes cannot resist the temptation of solving one more mystery. He summons his old flatmate and confidant, Dr Watson, to help.

180 AD. North of the Wall, Sarmatian warrior Kai and his adopted tribe, the Votadini, struggle for survival, cast into unfamiliar lands by Roman reprisals. When news arrives that an old enemy is in charge of the Votadini's hated foes, a confederation of tribes known as the Painted People, and has roused them to action, Kai heads south towards the Wall, hoping to ally with the Romans against this resurgent threat. Meanwhile, the Romans have heard tales of butchery and mayhem beyond the Wall.

1894, Wigan. Miss Dorothea Gadsworth is interviewed for a teaching vacancy at George Street Elementary but is ultimately dismissed as a candidate. The following Monday morning, her body is discovered in a locked classroom with a note by her side. DS Michael Brennan is called in to investigate what appears to be a straightforward suicide, but his instincts tell him there is more to this case than meets the eye.

When four postcards are sent anonymously to the staff of an advice centre, each with the word “murder” scribbled in a foreign language and the same precise OS map reference, the police are called. DCI Hennessey and his team of detectives visit the sinister location and make a chilling discovery: The body of a professional man who had been reported missing ten years earlier. Who sent the postcards, and why so long after the crime?

A note that is discovered hidden in a wall cavity of a London hotel leads Detective Inspector Harry Vicary and his team to a burial site containing the charred bones of two men. Their investigation into this startling find quickly leads them into a dark and brutal world, where men and women are used and abused by those who rule through fear and intimidation. But who were the dead men and how did they meet their fate?

A tip-off leads police to dismantle a pile of rubble in the village of Pendwick, in search of a hidden body. As expected, a corpse is found and is identified as being that of a local businessman who has been missing for 10 years.

Hennessey and Yellich - along with an ever-expanding team -head up the ensuing murder investigation. And then two further bodies are discovered - along with a particularly nasty brand of political extremism involving just a few too many respected local businessmen.

A police officer finds a badly injured man lying in a street in the centre of York in the early hours of the morning. The man subsequently succumbs to his injures without regaining consciousness. Hennessey and Yellich are brought in to investigate, along with the other members of the team, Ventnor and Pharoah.

Detective Inspector Michael Angel and his team of regulars are searching for a serial killer on the loose in the Yorkshire town of Bromersley. The available clues are as sparse as they are puzzling: A character in early Roman attire is observed at every murder and a laurel leaf is left on every corpse. DNA evidence links a woman of oriental origin to the murders but this profile doesn’t fit any of the suspects. The investigations become more mystifying as Inspector Angel races against the clock to find the killer.

When two badly burned bodies are discovered, the York police begin to wonder if there is a link. Are they crimes of passion or revenge? The result of a family feud? Hennessey and Yellich thoroughly investigate the private and business lives of the deceased, but find little to go on. Then Hennessey's gut feeling as to the identity of the killer, based on years of experience and intuition, is shaken when another burned body is discovered...and another.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic Deep Waters. Four amateur yachtsmen are toasting the completion of a trip from Falmouth to Spain in adverse weather conditions with a well-earned glass of cognac. But with just one mouthful, one of the friends drops dead. Who could be behind the poisoning, and why?

Gogol's great comic masterpiece paints an hilariously satirical picture of provincial life in 19th century Russia. Its publication in 1847 not only provided inspiration for succeeding generations of Russian writers, but fanned the already flickering flames of social discontent which were eventually to flare up and consume Russia in the revolution of 1917.

Charlotte Honeyman jilts her long-time swain, and on the spur of the moment marries a stranger. His pride damaged and his matrimonial plans upturned, sea captain Nick Thornton threatens to take revenge. Charlotte’s younger sister, Marianne, takes pity on Nick and secretly boards his ship, where she meets with an accident. Nick regards Marianne as the perfect tool with which to get his own back, but in the process falls in love....

This is Freeman’s third mystery featuring pathologist-detective Dr John Thorndyke. Whilst presenting a new invention for increasing the efficiency of gas-buoys with his laboratory assistant Polton, Thorndyke is dragged into a mystery involving an elderly seafaring man who has gone missing in the fog.