Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

An excavation at the lost gardens of Earlsacre Hall is called to a halt when a skeleton is discovered under a 300-year-old stone plinth, a corpse that seems to have been buried alive. But DS Wesley has a more recent murder case to solve. A man has been found stabbed to death in a caravan at a popular holiday park, and the only clue to his identity is a newspaper cutting about the restoration of Earlsacre. Does local solicitor Brian Willerby have the answer?

Detective Inspector Frank Elder's first case was unsolved. A dead woman, lying on a bed, immaculately dressed. The murderer was never found: free to kill again. Eight years later, Elder's estranged wife contacts him in his Cornish hideaway. Her friend's sister Claire has mysteriously disappeared. Elder reluctantly agrees to help. Then Claire is found dead, arranged with meticulous detail on her bed, and it doesn't take long for Elder to make the connection.

Thomas Mallen of High Banks Hall had many sons, most of them bastards. But to all of them he passed on his mark - a distinctive flash of white hair running to the left temple, known as the Mallen Streak. It was said that those who bore the streak seldom reached old age and that nothing good ever came of a Mallen. In 1851, Thomas Mallen found himself a ruined man, forced amid scandal and disgrace to sell the hall. With him went his two young wards and their indomitable governess. Then the Radlet brothers of Wilbur Farm arrived, one of whom bore the unmistakable Mallen Streak.

When DI Wesley Peterson is summoned to investigate a killing, he assumes that it is a routine case. But soon dark secrets start to emerge from the victim's past.... Meanwhile, archaeologist Neil Watson is pulled from the historic Paradise Court to a ruined village from World War One.

1893. Wigan is in the grip of a harsh winter and a devastating national miners' strike. Arthur Morris, a wealthy colliery owner whose determination to cut the miners' pay is one of the main causes of the strike, is found brutally murdered in an alleyway. A sinister letter prompted the victim to leave his dinner guests and hurry out into the freezing night to Scholes, a rough working-class district where he is universally hated.

Why did literary legend Wynn Staniland suddenly become a recluse in the 1980s? Most assumed he stopped writing because of his wife's bizarre suicide. And now a promising young author called Zac Wilkinson is working on Staniland's biography and hopes to reveal the true story to a waiting world. When Wilkinson is found brutally murdered, DI Wesley Peterson finds links to the unexplained poisoning of a middle-aged couple - and Staniland appears to be the connection.

When the body of Pauline Brent is found hanging from a yew tree in a local graveyard, DS Wesley Peterson immediately suspects foul play. Then history provides him with a clue. Wesley's archaeologist friend, Neil Watson, has excavated a corpse at his nearby dig - a young woman who, local legend has it, had been publicly hanged from the very same tree before being buried on unhallowed ground five centuries ago. Wesley is now forced to consider the possibility that the killer knows the tree's dark history.

A tool is an object with endless possibilities. Contained within each item is the chance to create, to inspire, to repair and improve. It's no wonder that scientific studies have shown humans are hardwired to appreciate hardware. This book is a celebration of both that potential and our reverence, exploring more than 150 incredible tools, their history, their unique appeal and how they are used by creative people to make just about anything.

Michael McCarthy, one of Britain's leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened and which, he argues, is inadequately served by the two defences put forward hitherto: sustainable development and the recognition of ecosystem services. Drawing on a wealth of memorable experiences from a lifetime of watching and thinking about wildlife and natural landscapes, McCarthy presents a new way of looking at the world.

May 1940: Sergeant Jack Tanner has been posted to a training company on the southeast coast of England where the mysterious deaths of two Polish refugees lead him to believe there has been foul play. As the Germans launch their blitzkrieg in Europe, the entire company are sent to join the battle to stop Hitler's drive across the Low Countries. Pitted against the die-hard Nazis of the SS "Death's Head" division and the great panzer commander, General Rommel himself, it is left to Tanner to get his men back to Allied lines.

The Hall family live under the brooding shadow of the Black Mountains, in the mining town of Hillsbridge. Charlotte, James and their seven children are independent spirits, united by strong family values. Living in a mining community is never easy, and when the shadow of impending war threatens, they must pull together to face the hardship to come. Can this close-knit family overcome whatever tragedy life throws at them?

A married airline pilot is found dead in his London flat, surrounded by shards of glass and the shattered remains of a champagne bottle. But who was the man seen with the pilot on the concourse of Heathrow airport? Private investigator Billy Rucker joins the case at the request of the pilot's brother, a well-known Tory MP. For Rucker it's the start of a long lonely trail through the city, clutching a grainy black and white photo and a gnawing suspicion in the pit of his stomach....

When archaeologist Neil Watson unearths a long-buried mechanical figure in a Dartmoor field, he is determined to discover the truth behind the bizarre find. Soon, however, the village becomes the focus of press attention when two people are found shot dead in nearby Manor Field. DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate, but the murders aren't his only problem.

When a man is found dead, and his carer, a good-time girl, is suspected of his murder, Detective Inspector Angel is drawn into an intricate web of family lies and deceit. The dead man’s daughter is hiding something, and his granddaughter seems incapable of telling anyone the truth. The pressure is on for Angel to unravel the mystery and identify the killer before another body is found.

Charlie Rutland specialized in scandal hunting. As a journalist at a smart magazine, his job was to search out anything that could be turned into a good smear story. Then, while carrying out some 'investigations' in Yorkshire, his career came to an abrupt and violent end. Inspector Crow, skeletal as ever, arrives from Scotland Yard to find a formidable task awaiting him.

While our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about everyday life in Nazi Germany. In this vivid and important study, Roger Moorhouse portrays the German experience of the Second World War from the viewpoint of the capital's streets and homes, raising issues of consent and dissent, morality and authority and charting the violent humbling of a once-proud metropolis.

Much-loved Calleshire research chemist Derek Tridgell has been ill for some time. On his deathbed, his incessant but unintelligible mutterings culminate in a cry of murder. Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby are brought in to investigate whether these are just the ramblings of a man at death's door or a real confession at the final hour. Their enquiries uncover three tragic deaths that may be linked to the deceased's last words: an accidental drowning at a rival chemist manufacturer, an old friend of Derek's killed in a caving expedition and his son walking away unscathed from a fatal car accident. It’s a complex case for Sloan and Crosby.

Inspector Angel and his team are faced with a baffling case when a fruit gum found at a murder scene becomes a significant clue in their investigation. The discovery of a hospital porter, also poisoned, indicates that the killer has struck more than once, and Angel is thrown headlong into a world of blackmail and deeply buried family secrets.

Lawyers who write books are not, as a rule, popular with their confrères, but Archibald Lenton, the most brilliant of prosecuting attorneys, was an exception. Alphonse Riebiera was a man who had a way with women, women who would fall under his spell and then regret it. But this time it seems he may have picked the wrong woman.

A year on from the mysterious disappearance of Jenny Bercival, DI Wesley Peterson is called in when the body of a strangled woman is found. The discovery mars the festivities of the Palkin Festival, held each year to celebrate the life of John Palkin, a 14th-century mayor of Tradmouth who made his fortune from trade and piracy. Could there be a link between the two women?