Showing results by narrator "Andrew Wincott" in All Categories

When the committee members of the Oldford Literary Festival all receive anonymous letters telling them to resign or die, it marks the start of an unusual case for Chief Superintendent Lambert and DS Hook. All of the members identify one man as being capable of such a thing: Peter Preston, a self-important cultural snob who is in disagreement with the head of the festival, Marjorie Dooks, over what he sees as the dumbing down of the events programme. But could a disagreement over a literary festival actually lead to murder?

June 8, 1954. Alan Turing, the visionary mathematician, is found dead at his home in sleepy Wilmslow, dispatched by a poisoned apple. Taking the case, Detective Constable Corell quickly learns Turing is a convicted homosexual. Confident it’s a suicide, he’s nonetheless confounded by official secrecy over Turing’s war record. What’s more, Turing’s sexuality appears to be causing alarm among the intelligence services – could he have been blackmailed by Soviet spies?

Opening with the iconic story 'The Destructors', in which a gang of schoolboys destroys a house that has survived the Blitz, Greene offers us deliciously satisfying glimpses into 21 worlds, with each piece written as masterfully as his novels. From the chilling climax of a children's birthday party, to a man whose youthful indiscretions come back to haunt him, these are the unmistakable work of one of the 20th century's greatest and most adored storytellers.

Dennis Cooper is one of the few full-time resident National Trust curators in England and lives with his wife in the grounds of the spectacular Westbourne Gardens, which receives thousands of visitors each year. On the face of things, Dennis lives a perfect life and has a dream job, but this idyllic setting is riven with dark secrets, and it isn't long before foul play draws Lambert and Hook into this troubled Eden.

In the fashionable spa town of Bath, one man is the arbiter of taste and the epitome of elegance: the self-proclaimed ‘King of Bath’, Beau Nash. In his capacity as Master of Ceremonies, he presides over the city’s social life, arranging balls and concerts for the ‘ton’, keeping a discreet eye on distinguished visitors and smoothing over any quarrels or disagreements. In these six episodes, he has his work cut out for him...

When two young sisters run away on Dartmoor, Daniel Whelan and his German Shepherd is called into action. A desperate search of the moor quickly turns up one of the girls. However, rather than showing relief at being rescued, she seems terrified, and Daniel cannot help but notice the strange behaviour of her father and uncle. Just what had the girls been running from?

They enslaved humanity three thousand years ago. Tall, strong, perfect, superhuman and near immortal they rule from their glittering palaces in the eternal city in the centre of the world. They are called Those Above by their subjects. They enforce their will with fire and sword. Twenty five years ago mankind mustered an army and rose up against them, only to be slaughtered in a terrible battle. Hope died that day, but hatred survived.

A missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A woman who must find them all to find herself. On the night Bernadette finally has the courage to tell her domineering husband that she's leaving, he doesn't come home. Neither does Conor, the little boy she's befriended for the past five years. Also missing is his lifebook, the only thing that holds the answers.

Eighteen months have passed, but the scars the Ragdoll murders left behind are reopened on a daily basis, the legacy of the infamous investigation infecting all aspects of daily life. Despite the media's best efforts, copycat murders all over the planet have proven to be nothing more than violent mutilations by the unimaginative and deranged - until a Wall Street banker is strung up impossibly across the Brooklyn Bridge, the word BAIT carved deep into his chest.

It only took one night to tear a family apart. Artist and illustrator Edwina Spinner used to have a busy family life. Now she lives alone in a house that has grown too big for her. She has decided to sell it. As Edwina takes the estate agent from room to room, she finds herself transported back to her life as a young mother. Back to her twins, Rowena and Charlie, and a stepson she cannot bring herself to mention by name.

Five footprints are the only sign that Daniel Buck was ever here. And now they are all his mother has left. Every day Anna Buck guards the little prints in the cement. Polishing them to a shine. Keeping them safe. Spiralling towards insanity. When a psychic offers hope, Anna grasps it. Who wouldn't? Maybe he can tell her what happened to her son.... But is this man what he claims to be? Is he a visionary? A shut eye? Or a cruel fake preying on the vulnerable? Or is he something far, far worse?

There is one great love in everyone's life. For Ducky, Princess Victoria Melita, hers was a Romanov cousin, a member of the doomed Russian royal family. Her father is Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son. Her mother is Grand Duchess Marie, the daughter of Tsar Alexander III. Ducky seems doomed to be a pawn on her grandmother's dynastic chessboard. But Ducky is not so easily controlled.

Dan Forrester, piecing his life back together after the tragic death of his son, is approached in a supermarket by a woman who tells him everything he remembers about his life - and his son - is a lie. Grace Reavey, stricken by grief, is accosted at her mother's funeral. The threat is simple: pay the staggering sum her mother allegedly owed or lose everything. Lucy Davies has been forced from the Met by her own maverick behaviour. Desperate to prove herself in her new rural post, she's on the hunt for a killer - but this is no small-town criminal.

Phoebe is caught between a rock and a hard place: either settle down and get married or return to the French Alps to pursue her passion. Eliza is in love with someone who is no longer hers. In fact he probably never was.... Rose is out of a job and out of a boyfriend. But these very different girls have one thing in common: Angus. The one they fell in love with....

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs....' So begins the first letter that nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald Dahl would continue to write weekly letters to his mother, chronicling his adventures, frustrations and opinions, from the delights of childhood to the excitements of flying as a World War II fighter pilot....

Negotiating their way through Stalinist terrors, Nazi slavery, and British colonial brutality, Pasha Zayky and his wife, Tanya, tell firsthand how a loving family fight for survival during the hell of the 20th century. Listeners follow this family from a war-torn Berlin to a forbidding postwar London, with flashbacks to 1930s Soviet Russia along the way, until they arrive in Africa, where nationalist forces are challenging British rule.

Two hours to get away, 22 more to survive. Security consultant and private investigator Michael Sander is tasked with the investigation of a video that seems to show two people being hunted to their deaths. His job is to find out who they are, and why they were murdered. But this isn't just another case, and these deaths are only one piece of the puzzle. This time Michael is investigating the darkest reaches of humanity, uncovering crimes that reach further than he ever imagined.

The concluding volume in Robyn Young's epic, internationally bestselling Brethren trilogy. After years of fighting in the desert sun - and secretly working for peace with the Brethren - Will Campbell returns to find his Scottish homeland under attack by his enemy, King Edward I. Betrayed by those he has served since boyhood, torn apart watching his daughter plunge into a dangerous affair, Will must now forge his own path to peace - even if it leads through another battlefield.

The sleepy Sussex village of Lakehurst is abuzz with news of the arrival of the new owner of Abbot’s Manor. Gerry Harlington, a flamboyant American actor, has taken residence with his glamorous Russian wife Ekaterina. The local dramatic society is looking for a new director for their Son et Lumière show to be staged at Fulke Castle and it seems at first that Gerry might fit the bill. All seems well, until Gerry’s attempt to insert a hip-hop street dance into an Elizabethan Fair scene is met with violent protest.

June 1940: As Britain's soldiers limped home from Dunkirk, a maverick Army officer was already devising a bold plan to hit back at the enemy. His idea was to revolutionise military thinking and change the face of warfare forever. Relying as much on stealth and guile as on courage and stamina, the Commandos brought to the battlefield the skills of the guerrilla. Trained by an unconventional band of experts, and led by a big-game hunter, a film star, a Highland chief and an eccentric wielding a bow and arrow, they became the spearhead of the Allied drive for victory.