Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

Bullion! is the ultimate locked-room mystery. A ship transporting gold bullion is travelling from Melbourne to London. The gold is packed into chests and stored in a separate locked and sealed room. But mysterious whispering is heard in the night and chests seemingly disappear and return, leading the crew to think they’re losing their minds. Can the second mate get to the bottom of the mystery?

It's a time of turmoil for the village of Turnham Malpas.... Peter and Caroline Harris live a comfortable life at the rectory, but their cosy world is shaken up when Caroline's old flame, Morgan Jefferson, appears. He's intent on convincing her to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - in America. Plus, it looks like Caroline's career isn't the only thing Morgan is interested in.

Fetherhoughton is a dreary town in 1950s northern England. Father Angwin has lost his faith. Sister Philomena strains against convent life. The inhabitants of the town go about their lives in a haze. Then a stranger appears, bringing with him the hint of something new. But who is Fludd? An angel come to shake the dwellers from their stupor, or is he the devil himself, a wanderer of the darkest places in the human heart?

I shall never forget the terrible Christmas I spent at Ringshaw Grange in the year 1993. When Dr Lascelles is invited to spend Christmas at Ringshaw Grange with Frank Ringan and his cousin Percy, he doesn't expect it to be such a noteworthy episode. But with talk of the Grange's ghost, Lady Joan, events take a darker turn.

Good News, Bad News... a secret agent is trained to try to think of every possible outcome and eventuality. Who could have guessed, though, that a bureaucratic error would send two men to the same 'cover' job, working in a shabby photo-processing booth, where each must keep his real identity secret from the other, while awaiting orders. Or that those orders would be to assassinate... each other. Thrown together by this apparently ghastly mistake, Charlie and George decide to go on the run together. In the whole world, the only people they can trust are each other. Or can they?

Oxford University, 1271: for the first time in the university's history a college is to be purpose-built. As old buildings are pulled down, a skeleton is revealed. The skull is missing - it is clear the man has been murdered. Regent Master William Falconer deduces that the body was hidden 20 years ago.

On a dark November evening, Sir Wilfred Saxonby is travelling alone in the five o'clock train from Cannon Street, in a locked compartment. The train slows and stops inside a tunnel, and by the time it emerges again minutes later, Sir Wilfred has been shot dead, his heart pierced by a single bullet. Suicide seems to be the verdict, even though no motive can be found, but Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard thinks again when he learns that a mysterious red light in the tunnel caused the train to slow down.

Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run . . .’But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

January 1916. Britain is on the brink of enforcing conscription. Eligible young men who have not yet signed up to fight are despised as ‘conchies’ and ‘shirkers’, subjected to hatred and verbal abuse. Cyril Ablatt, leader of Shoreditch’s group of conscientious objectors, makes a rousing speech at a meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship, refusing to be ‘an instrument of slaughter in a khaki uniform’.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. When Alfred Caithness extends his stay at Dingle House for Christmas, it is not only due to the bad weather. He is in need of a loan from his wealthy cousin Herbert, and he is in love with his wife, Barbara. But events take a dark turn after Herbert refuses to help him....

A story from Night in the Front Line, a collection of Second World War short stories. The war may have ended, but Richard and Louise discover there’s more to repair than just buildings and infrastructure. As they take a much-needed holiday in Paris, the couple must try to heal their relationship and get to know each other again after years of wartime separation.

Adam Cassidy is one of Brunton’s most famous residents. For the past few years he has played the lead role in a TV detective show that has been a worldwide success. He now believes it is his time for a crack at Hollywood, and, as plans are made for the fifth series, he doesn’t care who he has to betray in order to fulfill his dream. Meanwhile, DCI Percy Peach, now happily married to Lucy Blake, is at a loose end and is in danger of being drawn into the ongoing, and unpopular, local anti-terrorism initiative.

Four strangers arrive at the solicitors’ office of Puckle, Puckle, and Nunnery. They have never met and have no idea why they have been invited. But they - along with a missing man - are descendants of the late Algernon George Culver Mayton, the inventor of 'Mayton’s Marvellous Mixture', and each entitled to a portion of the Mayton fortune. But before they can split the money, the missing man must be found. They begin their search, but then Detective Sloan receives a call that one of the legatees has died following an attack of food poisoning....

February 1918. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy are pulled from their beds to attend a sinister siege involving three burglars where one policeman has already been shot dead. Attempts at talking the men in the house into surrender are met with stony silence so the police proceed to batter down the door and Keedy bravely leads the way. A gunshot is heard. Keedy is hit. As Keedy is rushed to hospital, Marmion is on the trail of the men who fled the scene and startling revelations emerge.

The discovery of a human skeleton and a red rucksack amongst the roots of a fallen tree jolts memories for DI Wesley Peterson: a hitchhiker who went missing in 2008 and was never found. Meanwhile, in the small Devon village of Petherham, a famous TV psychic is the main attraction at a supernatural weekend. But when the psychic dies in suspicious circumstances Wesley discovers a connection between the dead man and the vanished hitchhiker. But was he responsible for her murder? Or has a shady organisation called The Burial Circle been revived in the present day?

Keith Floyd started out in a hotel kitchen in Bristol. He made and lost fortunes, was married four times, and dealt with a level of fame that bemused him. Now, in this revealing memoir, he reflects upon his colourful career. As irrepressible, funny and charming as the man himself, this is a must-read for anyone who loves life, food, women... and a quick slurp.

Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but only if we skip it. Fasting is a wonderfully healthy state. When we fast our insulin levels fall, as do our blood sugar, triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Most usefully, when we fast we lose weight. But what do too many of us do on waking? We break that lovely gift of fasting - we literally breakfast - and we eat, so courting type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, strokes, hypertension, dementia and cancers of the liver, breast, pancreas and uterus.

DI Wesley Peterson has never witnessed such a bizarre crime scene. A man has been brutally murdered by two precise wounds to his neck and his body drained of blood. It seems that the victim was not a popular man in the Devon area and Wesley doesn't have a shortage of suspects. But then two more victims are found killed in an identical fashion. As if Wesley didn't have enough to investigate, Wesley's friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, begins to receive disturbing anonymous letters about macabre events at a medieval abbey.

After the death of leading haematologist Professor Anstruther, antiquarian book dealer Anthony Sparrow is tasked with clearing out his mansion of its books and papers. He soon begins to question the real circumstances of the old man's death: was he in fact murdered, and if so, who was responsible? The answer might be found in the personal diaries and letters which Sparrow unearths. But as he closes in on the answer, the perspective suddenly shifts and everything which he was sure about dissolves into darkness and shadows.

When workmen converting former girls' boarding school Chadleigh Hall into a luxury hotel discover a skeleton in a sealed room, DI Wesley Peterson and his boss, Gerry Heffernan, are called in to investigate. But within minutes they have a second suspicious death on their hands: a team of marine archaeologists working on a nearby shipwreck have dragged a woman's body from the sea. And it becomes clear that her death was no accident. The dead woman's husband may be linked with a brutal robbery of computer equipment, but Wesley soon discovers that the victim had secrets of her own....