Showing results by narrator "David Rintoul" in All Categories

In 1941, when she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser, the SS Benbecula was already old. Yet even she was needed to protect the vital Atlantic sea lanes. Commander Lindsay, her new captain, had to work desperately to mould the ship’s company - raw recruits and old-timers - into a fighting force. And better than anyone, Lindsay knew this could be his last command, his last chance.

When Captain Guy Sherbrooke joins HMS Reliant in 1943, he knows he may be her last Captain. Sister battleships have been destroyed, and Sherbrooke cannot alter the bitter truth that there will be no half measures for HMS Reliant.

As summer blooms in Edinburgh's gardens and Bertie Pollock's birthday appears on the horizon, all at 44 Scotland Street is not cake and sunshine. Newlywed Angus Lordie has been booked by his bride into what he must not call the loony bin; Bruce's first encounter with hot wax brings more anguish than he bargained for; and Bertie's birthday dreams of scout camp and a penknife look set to be replaced by a game of Royal Weddings and a gender-neutral doll.

In The Waters of Eternal Youth, the 25th instalment in the best-selling Brunetti series, our commissario finds himself drawn into a case that may not be a crime at all. Brunetti is investigating a cold case by request of the Grand Contessa Lando-Continui, a friend of Brunetti's mother-in-law. Fifteen years ago the Contessa's teenage granddaughter, Manuela, was found drowning in a canal.

To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose; it is summer in Scotland Street (as it always is) and for the habitués of Edinburgh's favourite street some extraordinary adventures lie in waiting. For the impossibly vain Bruce Anderson - he of the clove-scented hair gel - it may finally be time to settle down, and surely it can only be a question of picking the lucky winner from the hordes of his admirers....

These five very different Socratic Dialogues date from Plato's later period, when he was revisiting his early thoughts and conclusions and showing a willingness for revision. In Timaeus (mainly a monologue read by David Timson in the title role), Plato considers cosmology in terms of the nature and structure of the universe, the ever-changing physical world and the unchanging eternal world. And he proposes a demiurge as a benevolent creator God.

The crack German cruiser Prinz Luitpold had always been lucky in battle. To the beleaguered army on the Baltic coast she was their one remaining symbol of hope. But it is the summer of 1944, and on every front the war is going badly for Germany. When the order comes to leave the Baltic to attack and destroy enemy shipping in the Atlantic, Kapitan zur See Dieter Hechler knows that once out in this vast killing ground it will only be a matter of time before the hunter becomes the hunted.

First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 15 novels and novellas.

Western Ocean, 1942... From the bridge of HMS Gladiator, Lieutenant-Commander David Howard’s orders were chillingly clear. There could be no mercy. To the men who fought to protect the vital, threatened Merchant Navy convoys in the Western Approaches, the Battle of the Atlantic was a full-scale war. A relentless, savage war against an ever-present enemy and a violent sea - in an arena known only to its embittered survivors as the killing ground. HMS Gladiator was part of that war.

Based on real historical events. A time for vengeance AD 9, German frontier: Close to the Rhine, a Roman centurion, Lucius Tullus, prepares to take his soldiers on patrol. On the opposite side of the river, German tribes are resentful of the harsh taxes about to be imposed upon them. Suspicious that there might be unrest, Tullus knows that his men's survival will be determined not just by their training and discipline, but by his leadership.

When the entire Soviet Union wheat crop is destroyed by a devastating string of failures, the population faces starvation. The USA is quick to offer assistance. They devise a plan to trade vital food resources with the Russians in exchange for sensitive political information. But the Politburo has other ideas: the invasion of Western Europe to commandeer the food for them... As the paths of communication breakdown the president of the United States and leaders from around the world face an appalling choice: Should they allow the loss of thousands to save the lives of many more?

HMS Temeraire: latest and most advanced of Britain's nuclear submarines. When Temraire's trials are cut short and she is ordered to the Far East to reinforce the fleet against a threat from Red China, her captain, David Jermain, knows that this is no routine exercise in flag-waving. And once in Asian waters, he and his submarine find themselves involved in a hidden, undeclared conflict beneath the sea.

Told by servant Ephraim Mackellar, The Master of Ballantrae is set at the time of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and portrays the Durie family. James abandons his ancestral home to support the Jacobites while his younger brother, Henry, loyal to the English king, remains. However, years later James, who had been supposed dead, returns to claim his inheritance, resulting in a feud between the brothers that shifts from the Scottish Highlands to the Wild West of America. 

In his final novel, Sick Heart River, John Buchan predicted that with the outbreak of a second world war Richard Hannay and all his companions of old would be going back into action. In The Thirty-One Kings, the tale of their adventures is finally told. June 1940. As German troops pour across France, the veteran soldier and adventurer Richard Hannay is called back into service. In Paris an agent, codenamed 'Roland', has disappeared and is assumed to be in the hands of the Nazis.

An astonishing discovery is made in the remote African republic of Zangaro, one which could change the course of a nation's history forever. But such a discovery cannot be kept secret for long and Sir James Manson will stop at nothing to protect this find. A ruthless and bloody-minded tycoon, Manson immediately hires an army of mercenaries and with this deadly crew behind him he sets out to topple the government and replace its dictator with a puppet president.

Billionaire Saul Abercrombie owns a vast tract of land on the Pembrokeshire coast. By restoring the original forest that covered the area before medieval times, he believes he will rekindle the spirits of ancient folklore. But the re-planting of the forest will revive an altogether darker and more dangerous entity - and young arboreal expert Tom Curtis will find himself engaging in an epic, ancient battle between good and evil. A battle in which there can be only one survivor.

In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon’s first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous and cut-throat world of opera and to one of Italy’s finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli - then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca. As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans and aspiring singers.

The Mediterranean, 1943... The HMS Rob Roy. A tiny machine, just 230 feet from stem to stern. In peacetime she would have trawled for cod. Now her catch is deadlier by far. Lieutenant-Commander Ian Ransome is a veteran of the treacherous front line of naval combat. Under sealed orders in the battle-tossed waters of the Mediterranean, he and his jack-tired crew face one final test of their courage....

For the first time we discover what really happened between his sister and the dastardly Wickham. How did he distract his friend Bingley from pining for his beloved Jane? Why did he propose to another young woman? Only to his diary does he tell his true story. At last we see Darcy as he really is; and, beneath his polite facade, we find a sensitive, private and passionate man.