Showing results by narrator "David Monteath" in All Categories

Spinster Chastity Hamilton is the Duke of Roxburgh's heir. Her father insists she marry. She insists that the man who wins her hand must first find matches for her three younger sisters. Sir Stirling James takes up the challenge, and the sisters are shocked when he announces the engagement of their youngest sister to the Devil of Delny. Lady Chastity didn't believe a man who could make such matches in one month's time existed.

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered. Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her. But then Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing.

From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents 17 classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country.

Think you know the person you’re married to? Think again. The Glasgow Fair weekend was usually the busiest of the year for the Serious Crime Division. But by the Sunday morning, it appeared to have gone off without a major hitch. Then DCI Dani Bevan received a call from one of her team. A middle-aged man had gone missing from his home in Giffnock. Dani didn’t take the case too seriously, until it turned out that the uncle of her friend, DC Andy Calder, disappeared under identical circumstances a decade before.

With a bike, a turbo trainer, and the right advice, you can beat anyone. No one but Graeme Obree has the clarity of vision to get to the heart of the "problem" of how to improve as a racing cyclist. His innovative approach took him to the top of world cycling, twice breaking the world hour record - a story picked up in his Hollywood biopic The Flying Scotsman. It can draw the same outstanding athletic performance from you.

Film star Amelie Hart is the darling of the silver screen, appearing on the front pages of every newspaper. But at the peak of her fame she throws it all away for a regular guy with an ordinary job. The gossip columns are aghast. Any hope the furore will die down is crushed when Amelie’s boyfriend, Dave, is arrested on charges of child sexual abuse. Dave strongly asserts his innocence, and when Amelie refuses to denounce him, the press witch hunt quickly turns into physical violence and she has to flee the country.

A student meets an untimely demise when she falls from Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh's Holyrood Park. Was she pushed? Whilst DI Jack Knox is picking through the lies of the victim's friends, he is called upon to help the narcotics division on the other side of the city. A drug dealer is dead and the squad is setting up a deadly sting. But without Knox and the clout he has among the criminal fraternity, they're unable to move against rival gangs.

Every doctor is haunted by memories of difficult patients. People whom, despite all of their patience and persistence and the best communication, diagnostic and reasoning skills, they haven't helped. And anyone who has been a patient will tell you about encounters with difficult doctors, of relationships freighted with mutual bafflement, hostility and pain. Despite its vast resources, medicine is so often destined to fail people. Written by a practising GP, this book is told through stories of Dr Peter Dorward's hardest cases.

Orkney, 1940. Five hundred Italian prisoners-of-war arrive to fortify these remote and windswept islands. Resentful islanders are fearful of the enemy in their midst, but not orphaned twin sisters Dorothy and Constance. Already outcasts, they volunteer to nurse all prisoners who are injured or fall sick. Soon Dorothy befriends Cesare, an artist swept up by the machine of war and almost broken by the horrors he has witnessed. She is entranced by his plan to build an Italian chapel from war scrap and sea debris, and something beautiful begins to blossom.

Andrew Marr's first book tells the distinctive story of Scottish politics - now updated with a new introductory chapter. "We may be about to see a new country - indeed, two new countries, emerging on these islands. Half a lifetime ago, I sat down to write this book as a work of history. As it's aged, it's become current affairs."

Few people in the world are better placed to understand the role of charity and generosity than Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow. As the founder and CEO of Mary’s Meals, Magnus helps feed and educate millions of children in 18 different countries across the world every year. In a time when some charitable organisations have been rocked by scandal and many are questioning their effectiveness in the modern age, Give takes us on an epic journey to rediscover the beauty and transformative power of authentic charity.

Bonnie Scotland, and she is Bonnie that’s for sure. A country with a rich and mysterious history. Strange land formations, ancient standing stone circles, and otherworldly scenery run from coast to coast. It is the land of the Celts and their folklore that includes stories of unicorns, shape shifting spirits, Kelpies, fairies, and monsters that swim in deep Lochs.

Amber MacCoinnich's survival depends on her traveling to the twenty first century, or so her mother’s premonition told her. Death taunts Amber and offers peace in her endless pain. Without the mysterious savior her mother spoke of, Amber prepares for death only to wake with a handsome, dark stranger in her bed. Gavin Kincaid spends his life shifting time in order to preserve and protect the MacCoinnich family and their line even though he’s never met one living MacCoinnich.

"Squid Game" meets "The Hunger Games" in this thriller where modern-day recruits compete in an ancient, deadly game across the streets of Edinburgh. Welcome to the Pantheon Games. Let the streets of Edinburgh run with blood...The Games are the biggest underground event in the world, followed by millions online. New recruits must leave behind their twenty-first-century lives and vie for dominance in a gruelling battle to the death armed only with ancient weapons – and their wits.

For her own safety, modern day, single mom, Lizzy McAllister is forced to bow to the medieval men who surround her when she's thrust back in time to the sixteenth century against her will. When Lizzy finds herself trapped in time with Fin, the one man she finds both irresistible and maddening, she agrees to combine forces with him to rid Scotland of the evil witch, Grainna.

Myra, a medieval virgin druidess, flees five hundred years into the future in order to escape death at the hands of a cursed witch, landing in the arms of a handsome but cynical twenty-first century cop. Officer Todd Blakely knows Myra is hiding something, but he can't resist her innocent charms. Destiny throws them both into a world of intrigue and mysticism. Can Todd be the true white knight she needs? Or will magic and the winds of time tear them apart?

A busy practising barrister who also served as a judge, Cyril Hare also found time to publish nine detective novels and approximately 40 short stories, including Thursday’s Child, which takes the listener to the island of Cara, the west coast of Kintyre in Scotland. When a businessman from London tries to buy the island, the mysterious, lone inhabitant of the island’s interest is immediately piqued.

Glaswegian author Bill Knox brings us a chilling story of kidnap and revenge in The Alibi Man. Manny Davis is being held prisoner in a cellar with no recollection of how he got there, whilst parcel bombs and other strange things have been happening around the city linked to a man matching Manny’s description.

DCI Jim Daley is sent from the city to investigate a murder after the body of a woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the West Coast of Scotland. Far away from urban resources, he finds himself a stranger in a close-knit community. Love, betrayal, fear and death stalk the small town as Daley investigates a case that becomes more deadly than he could possibly imagine in this compelling Scottish crime novel infused with intrigue and dark humour.

When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls. Online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the accusations of sexual abuse and murder that were levelled at Crystal before he died. But as Scott begins to ask questions and rake over old graves, some startling inconsistencies emerge.