Showing results by narrator "Philip Frank" in All Categories

Seven BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of P. D. James' acclaimed mysteries, plus P. D. James in Her Own Words. This collection includes: Cover Her Face, A Taste for Death, Devices and Desires, A Certain Justice, The Private Patient, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin.

One of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy. It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been reenacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed forever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn.

Peregrine Jay, owner of the Dolphin Theatre, is putting on a magnificent production of Macbeth, the play that, superstition says, always brings bad luck. But one night the claymore swings, and the dummy's head is more than real: murder behind the scene. Luckily, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience....

The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence - but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish.... Scales of Justice was first published in 1955.

When the exuberant president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise. Consequently, on the night of the embassy's reception, the house and grounds are stiff with police.

The Cold War was an undeclared war, fought silently and carefully between ideological opponents armed with the most fearsome weapons mankind has ever seen. Hughes-Wilson takes a cool look at this war, from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR thereafter. He examines the suspicion and paranoia - on both sides - of the greatest stand-off in history.

When Cedric Charlton, an unsuspecting tax inspector, arrives at the door of the Pop Larkin farm, he soon forgets the purpose of his visit: The fun-loving Ma and Pop Larkin distract him at every turn with strawberries, cream, alcohol, and their attractive young daughter, Mariette. Well known by the popular TV series starring David Jason and Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Darling Buds of May is the quintessential feel-good country romp.

Constable Nick patrols his rural Yorkshire beat on foot or on his trusty Francis Barnett motorcycle. But as beautiful as the villages are, they conceal real human drama. Nick is on hand to help out when Aidensfield decides to enter the Best Kept Village competition and finds itself the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by its rivals. Then there is the mystery of the spontaneously combusting henhouse, and Nick has to cope with the consequences when the vicar tries a novel way of keeping the churchyard tidy.

When Mattie Harris' body is found drowned in the river, everyone in Lydmouth knows something is wrong. Mattie wasn't a swimmer - it can't have been a simple accident. She was drunk on the last night of her life - could she have fallen in? Or was she pushed? Mattie was a waitress, so when Lydmouth's most prominent citizens become very anxious to establish that her death was accidental, Jill Francis' suspicions become roused. In the meantime she is becoming ever closer to Inspector Richard Thornhill and discovering that the living have as many secrets as the dead.

Policeman Nick Rhea has been posted to the country with his wife, Mary, and their three small children. They move into the police house, high on a ridge overlooking the moors. It sits on the edge of the village of Aidensfield - 'probably the most beautiful site in the country'. In the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside of the 1960s, Constable Nick's roles are as varied as the eccentric villagers. He handles every encounter with his characteristic humour, humanity and professionalism.

On November 12, 1912, a rescue team trekking across Antarctica's Great Ice Barrier finally found what they sought - the snow-covered tent of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Inside, they made a grim discovery: Scott's frozen body lay between the bodies of two fellow explorers. They had died just eleven miles from the depot of supplies which might have saved them.

During a break from his usual village beat, young Police Constable Nick finds himself involved with holidaymakers and their problems. As well as the normal seaside duties, how does he cope with a man who’s lost his false teeth in the sea and another who wants to give away thousands of pounds when drunk? Then there's the stray Labrador that thinks he's a police dog and accompanies police officers on night patrols and the anxious fisherman who daren't tell his wife that he owns a racehorse.

Constable Along the Lane is the seventh in the brilliantly entertaining and heartwarming audiobooks behind the hit '90s TV series Heartbeat - one of the top 10 most watched shows of the decade. A hay barn is set on fire at Low Dale Farm. It seems that an arsonist is targeting isolated barns. Arnold Merryweather's ancient bus helps catch a car thief. And when Nick arrests not only a pig thief but also the expectant pig, the police station cleaner is not very pleased. 

In the third sequel to The Darling Buds of May, Charley and Mariette decide to get baby Blenheim christened, leading to a wholesale christening of all seven of the Larkin children. Chaos abounds as the vicar, Mr Candy, is run ragged by the naughty twins, Zinnia and Petunia, and finds himself the object of desire for Pop's second eldest, Primrose. To top it all off, Pop buys a fairground on a whim, and Mlle Dupont arrives to discover that Pop is not a Lord, nor does he live in a mansion.

As a young police officer in Palestine during the closing months of the Mandate - the cradle of Middle Eastern terrorism - Richard Thornhill saw and did things which still haunt his dreams and make him fear for his sanity. Is he himself a killer? Now, when a retired police officer is found dead in the ruins of Lydmouth Castle, the past has come back to claim Detective Inspector Thornhill and he is under suspicion of another murder. His wife, Edith, and former lover Jill Francis join forces in an uneasy alliance to try to help him.

In the final book of the series that began with The Darling Buds of May, the fun-loving Pop Larkin finds himself confined to a bed following a mild heart attack - caused by a little too much of what he fancied. Ma battles with the doctors as she attempts to find an adequate cure, but it turns out that a seductive nurse is all he needs. Pa's spirits truly recover themselves when he is forced to defend his home from the ministry's railway plans. This concludes the tales of H. E. Bates' Larkin family.

Nick is still settling into his role at the Ashfordly Section police station, and he’s drawn the short straw: night duty. Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him. A sleeping village doesn’t mean a simple shift, though. Between the early risers of the farming community, a badger with a sweet tooth and getting to know his new workmates, there’s no time for Nick to kick his feet up in the station.

The definitive guide to why different financial markets exist and how they operate. This edition brings the listener right up to speed with the latest developments in financial instruments and provides a clear and incisive guide to this complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. With chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options and other derivatives.

BOHEMIA, 1741: on the northern banks of the Vltava River, an extraordinary event is taking place. Inside a private chapel, a high-born Hungarian lady is being laid to rest. But not before her heart is removed from her body, and she is buried beneath a layer of heavy stones - lest she rise again to prey upon her victims…VENICE, PRESENT DAY: in the world’s most beautiful city, something unspeakable is happening. An unnamed tomb has been opened revealing a female skeleton and a diary dating back hundreds of years.

From the number one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fourth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. The Korean war rumbles in the background throughout this novel as a reporter is found murdered at the Bathurst Arms, squatters are evicted from a military camp and there are new developments in the three-year-old hunt for a missing teenager. And in spite of all that's going on, Jill Francis, a local journalist, and DI Richard Thornhill find they can no longer resist their feelings for each other.