Showing results by narrator "Mark Meadows" in All Categories

Former chief investigator Jan Kalisz lives a dangerous double life, forced to work with the occupiers as he gathers information for the fledgling Polish resistance. Even his family cannot be told his true allegiance. When the niece of a Wehrmacht general is found terribly mutilated, Jan links the murder to other killings that are of less interest to his new overlords. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a psychopathic killer known as The Artist. But, shunned as a Nazi collaborator, can he solve the case before another innocent girl is taken?

Arlott and Swanton typified the contrasting aspects of post-war Britain. Because of their strong personalities and distinctive voices – Swanton's crisp and upper-class, Arlott's with its Hampshire burr – each had a loyal following. As England moved from a class-based to a more egalitarian society, nothing stayed the same – including professional cricket. Wise, lively and filled with rich social and sporting history, Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket shows how, as the game entered a new era, these two very different men battled to save the soul of the game.

Berlin, 1931. A power struggle is taking place in Berlin’s underworld. The American gangster Abraham Goldstein is in residence at the Hotel Excelsior. As a favour to the FBI, the police put him under surveillance, with Detective Gereon Rath on the job. As Rath grows bored and takes on a private case for his seedy pal Johann Marlow, he soon finds himself in the middle of a Berlin street war. Meanwhile Rath’s on-off girlfriend, Charly, lets a young woman she is interrogating escape, and soon her investigations cross Rath’s from the other side.

After the sudden loss of his wife, Michael Turner moves to London and develops a close friendship with the Nelson family next door. Josh, Samantha and their two young daughters seem to represent everything Michael fears he may now never have. Despite this, the new friendship at first seems to offer the prospect of healing, but then a catastrophic event changes everything. Michael is left bearing the burden of a secret he must keep, but the truth can be kept at bay for only so long.

Two of the most important oil-fields in the world – one in Canada, the other in Alaska. An unknown quantity – deadly and efficient. The oil flow could be interrupted in any one of thousands of places down the trans-Alaskan pipeline. Catastrophe. One man, Jim Brady, is called in to save the life-blood of the world as unerringly, the chosen targets fall at the hands of a hidden enemy…

Never has Inspector Montalbano's character – a unique blend of humor, cynicism, compassion, earthiness, and love of good food – been more compelling than in Andrea Camilleri's third Montalbano novel, The Snack Thief. When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an...

It is 1866 and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.

Felicity Holland is missing. She left her handsome West London house to go to her weekly pottery class and didn't come back. She's a mature, sensible woman with a stable home life and a happy marriage - no reason to abscond. Her distraught husband is convinced she must have been snatched. DCI Bill Slider and his team know that when a woman goes missing, you have to move fast if there's to be a hope of finding her alive. But with no evidence of foul play - nothing to go on at all - where do you even start looking?

Time won't heal his broken heart, but revenge might... Ivor has never loved anyone the way he loves Becky. Then his world collapses – Becky is found dead. Consumed by grief, Ivor is determined to find out what happened. What he discovers is darker than heartbreak: controlling lies, family secrets and a past that refused to stay buried. But Ivor has his own demons. And as his obsession with the truth deepens, his heartache for Becky curdles into something far more dangerous. Murder.

Five ordinary people, forced to battle on the most terrifying field imaginable: the landscape of nightmares. They are the Night Warriors, and only they can defeat the evil that has invaded our world. Two of the cruelest and most horrific apparitions ever seen are attempting to destroy the world by entering the dreams of expectant mothers. They bring with them nightmare creatures, embedding them into the minds of newborn babies. It is against these demons, in an unreal world of terror, that the five Night Warriors will fight...innocent lives depend on it.

Set in Sicily, The Terracotta Dog is the second novel in the humorous Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. *Adapted for BBC4's Inspector Montalbano series* After a cloak and dagger exchange with an ageing Mafioso, Inspector Montalbano is left haunted by the man’s dying words, which...

Since his appointment as Nomarch of Memphis, by the God-Pharaoh Rameses, Piay has thrown himself into pulling the city back from the brink. The famous white city walls have been rebuilt, the once starving inhabitants fed and every day caravans have arrived from the desert wastes, filled with the many riches looted and hidden by the Hyksos. But when the body of a murdered scribe is found sealed inside the newly constructed city vault - the mark of Anubis, god of death, scrawled next to him in his own blood - panic sweeps the city.

Nine men: each of them at a different stage of life, away from home, and striving - in the suburbs of Prague, in a cheap Cypriot hotel - to understand just what it means to be alive here and now. Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are - ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing.

Both Sides is Nicklas Bendtner's shockingly honest memoir of both the bright and dark sides of his personality and the football industry and what really happens when you give a troubled, overconfident teen millions to spend. It's about growing up in a working class neighbourhood and never denying your roots while living a dramatically changed life. It's about fighting to reach the top in the worlds' toughest league but having no respect for hierarchy. It's about friendship, rivalry, loneliness, failing father figures and the constant quest for an adrenaline kick

Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. This book tells the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. Using previously unpublished diaries, original Luftwaffe reports and specially commissioned artwork, this gripping battle is told in detail through the eyes of the Luftwaffe commanders and pilots.

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.

The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.

Filled with the twists, pathos and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist's extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer's death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, A.N. Wilson seeks to understand Dickens' creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens's fiction drew from his own experiences. Dickens knew first-hand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage.

DCI Bill Slider and his team are plunged into a city-wide manhunt when the body of a police officer is found dumped in a canal. Colleagues say PC Peter Bentley was a quiet bloke who kept himself to himself. But as Slider and Atherton dig deeper, it becomes clear that this likeable bobby had secrets. Was he involved in something that got out of control or had something from his past come back to bite him? Soon, the hardships of 'the Job' and the office politics at play make for an intriguing mystery that, this time, feels too close to home...

She is omnivorous. No matter age or appearance, physical frailty or imperfection. It is not their flesh that feeds her appetites, but their souls. She devours young and old, men and women. She leaves only a desiccated husk. An unspeakable evil. An impossible gift. Renowned magus Taita is now over 100 years old and has ascended to a new level of wisdom and understanding about his world. But he must prepare himself for the biggest threat Egypt has ever faced: the great plagues and the failure of the Nile, brought about by the fire witch Eos, an ancient force of sheer evil.