Showing results by narrator "Gareth Armstrong" in All Categories

Throughout her distinguished career, Ann Granger has penned an array of hugely entertaining and gripping short stories. To mark her thirtieth anniversary as a crime writer, eighteen of these compelling mysteries have been brought together to delight and enthrall crime fans everywhere.

In the quest to find the Nine Gates to the underworld of Styxx and an audience with the great Nagash, Tarsus of the Hallowed Knights leads his Stormcast Eternals to the Blood Wastes. His guide, Mannfred von Carstein, warns that this is a tempestuous land, full of ill intent. Whilst rescuing a conclave of priests from a Bloodbound warband, Tarsus and his men are forced to seek refuge from a spectral storm in a strange bastion.

Richard Cullis is Director of Research and Development at the Gloucester Chemicals Company. Late one night, he is dramatically kidnapped and warned to suspend all animal experiments in the laboratories if he values his life. Some weeks later a company golf tournament has a startling conclusion when Richard collapses after dinner. Murder is suspected, but who administered the poison?

The Red Queen tells the story of the child-bride of Edmund Tudor, who, although widowed in her early teens, uses her determination of character and wily plotting to infiltrate the house of York under the guise of loyal friend and servant, undermine the support for Richard III and ultimately ensure that her only son, Henry Tudor, triumphs as King of England.

For anyone who loves sailing and adventure, Arthur Ransome's classic Swallows and Amazons series stands alone. Originally published over a half-century ago, the twelve books are still eagerly read by children and adults alike - by all those captivated by the world of adventure and imagination. Such longevity is not only due to Ransome's unparalleled gift of storytelling, but also his championing of qualities such as independence and initiative; virtues that appeal to every generation, whether young or old. Jibbooms and bobstays!

Gurney Close isn’t the sort of place where anything untoward should happen. It’s just a small, newly-built cul-de-sac with three nice houses and a bungalow overlooking the river Wye. The people who move in – three married couples and a divorcee – don’t expect much excitement beyond some neighbourhood friendliness. With this in mind, they organise a party to celebrate moving in. Everything goes well and a good time is had by all – until one of them is found dead the next morning.

After being reforged, Lord-Relictor Ramus of the Hallowed Knights is sent by Sigmar to capture the betrayer, Mannfred von Carstein. The quest brings Ramus to the Carthic Oldwoods of Ghur, where he comes to the aid of the Astral Templars against a massive ogor horde. Victorious, but at great cost, Ramus discovers Mannfred is finally close at hand. Only with the help of the Astral Templars will the Lord-Relictor catch his quarry, but there are deadlier things in the woods than ogors, a fact the Stormcast Eternals soon discover.

The Coffee House was a warm, brightly lit place. The serving girls were pretty and the men who visited the rooms seemed polite enough. But still there were whispers, ugly disquieting rumours about what happened at night when the big oak door was closed. The young doctor had never been inside the Coffee House - and indeed had no wish to - until he met the frail, shabbily dressed girl on the Newmarket coach.

London, 1909: the British Empire seems invulnerable. But Captain Vernon Kell, head of counterintelligence at the War Office, knows better. In Russia, revolution; in Germany, an arms race; in London, the streets are alive with foreign terrorists. Kell wants to set up a Secret Service, but to convince his political masters, he needs proof of a threat - and to find that, he needs an agent he can trust. Kell needs Wiggins.

After a gruelling journey, the warriors of the Hallowed Knights and Astral Templars have found their quarry in the Sea of Bones. During the hunt, Mannfred the vampire lord has raised a mighty undead host to protect the realmgate he has claimed. While Ramus of the Hallowed Knights seeks the vampire's head and Vandalus of the Astral Templars wants to reclaim the realmgate, both must fight as one and alongside their orruk allies if they are to triumph.

Since he was crippled by rebel treachery on Sixty-Three Nineteen, Maloghurst the Twisted has continued to serve Warmaster Horus as his closest aide and confidant. His loyalty has remained constant, but the XVI Legion has changed. Rivalry and personal ambition run rife, and although Horus' authority is supreme, his equerry's is certainly not. When a daemonic plot to infest the Vengeful Spirit comes to light, Maloghurst reluctantly turns to the few allies he has left: the mysterious Davinites.

The sixth Inspector Ben Ross mystery. On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he's seen nothing.

Three soldiers, bound together by a single terrible event in the final days of the First World War, and a scheme to stun an entire country. Wounded and traumatised by their wartime experience, Albert Maillard and Édouard Péricourt return from the fighting on the Western Front and find themselves struggling in a society where reverence for the dead can never erase the revulsion for those who survived.

Laos, 1972. The Communist Pathet Lao has taken over. Most of the educated class has fled, but 72-year-old Dr Siri Paiboun, a Paris-trained doctor, remains and is appointed state coroner. When three bodies are recovered from a reservoir, Dr.Siri establishes the cause of death was not drowning - they seem to have been electrocuted. And then there is the inexplicable death of a Party bigwig's wife at a banquet. Dr.Siri doesn't think her death was from natural causes.

The quest to find the Nine Gates that lead to the underworlds of Shyish and an audience with Nagash continues.... Tarsus of the Hallowed Knights leads his Stormcast Eternals into the unearthly city of Helstone. Their enigmatic guide, Mannfred von Carstein, assures them that what they need to find his necromantic master lies within its halls, but there is more than darkness lurking in the ruins. Chaos has already taken root, and a reckoning against the servants of the Plague God awaits.

The brilliant new Wilde/Chase novel from best seller Andy McDermott. In their 11th adventure, Nina and Eddie must go on a desperate search to find the truth behind the book of Revelation as they try to deal with the most momentous change to their lives to date - Nina's pregnancy.... For fans of Cussler, Mariani and Rollins, the Daily Express says McDermott's novels 'explode off the page'.

Thomas Cromwell is known to millions as the leading character in Hilary Mantel's best-selling Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. But who was the real Cromwell? Born a lowly tavern keeper's son, Cromwell rose swiftly through the ranks to become Henry VIII's right-hand man, and one of the most powerful figures in Tudor history. The architect of England's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries, he oversaw seismic changes in our country's history.

In Missee Lee, the original cast of the famed series is sailing under the stars and the command of Captain Flint in the South China Sea when Gibbet, their pet monkey, grabs the captain's cigar and drops it in the fuel tank. In minutes, the ship is ablaze (and doomed), and our seven luckless protagonists are adrift in two small boats. They make their way to land, only to find themselves the captives of one of the last remaining pirates operating off the China Coast. However, Missee Lee, as it turns out, is no ordinary pirate....

For anyone who loves sailing and adventure, Arthur Ransome's classic Swallows and Amazons series stands alone. Originally published over a half-century ago, the 12 books are still eagerly read by children and adults alike - by all those captivated by the world of adventure and imagination. Such longevity is not only due to Ransome’s unparalleled gift of storytelling, but also his championing of qualities such as independence and initiative; virtues that appeal to every generation, whether young or old.

September 1939. For years now Britain has been rudderless, divided and grievously unequal. Successive governments have floundered as they struggled to cope with economic misery at home and machinations abroad. Many of the country's citizens are seduced by fascism; others are simply left alienated by leaders who seem unwilling or unable to take the decisive action that is so desperately needed.