Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

A short story from British Library crime classic Deep Waters. Narrated in the first person by Robert Beringer, a writer of sea stories, 'A Question of Timing' describes how he narrowly stops a murder on the bank of the Thames.

From the master of British crime writing comes Frank Elder’s last case. When his estranged daughter Katherine suddenly appears on his doorstep, Elder knows that something is badly wrong. The breakdown of her relationship with a controversial artist has sent her into a self-destructive tailspin which culminates in murder. And as Elder struggles to protect Katherine and prove her innocence, the terrors of the past threaten them both once more.

A body is found in the woods.... Based on the true story of the shocking murder of Mrs Caroline Luard, which took place in Kent in August 1908. Caroline Luard is shot dead in broad daylight in the grounds of a large country estate. With few clues available, her husband soon becomes the suspect... but is he guilty? Bringing to life the people involved in this terrible crime, in A Dreadful Murder best-selling author Minette Walters uses modern detective skills to attempt to solve a 100-year-old crime.

From best-selling author Lyn Andrews comes a compelling historical epic set at the endlessly fascinating Tudor court about the most infamous woman of the age - Anne Boleyn - and the man who loved her before she became queen. From the moment Henry Percy, future Earl of Northumberland, glimpses the beautiful Anne Boleyn he is captivated and quickly proposes marriage. Anne has been taught to use her charms to her advantage and to secure her family's position of power at court. She sees that Henry Percy's affection is sincere and agrees to marry him.

Bert Trautmann is famed as the goalkeeper who broke his neck in an FA Cup final and played on. But his early life is no less extraordinary: he grew up in Nazi Germany and fought for the Germans in World War Two. In 1945 he was captured and sent to a British POW camp where, for the first time, he saw a better way of life. He embraced England as his new home and before long became an England football hero. This is his extraordinary story.

An editor receives a manuscript purporting to be the lost diary of history's greatest lover, Don Juan. An orphan left on the steps of a convent, Don Juan grew up within the church but his ambitions towards the priesthood fell to the wayside when he was seduced by a young nun. Evicted from the convent, he was taken under the wing of the libertine Don Pedro, the Marquis of Mota, who coached him in skills both courtly and amorous and then employed him as a spy at court.

Lilith Benley and her mother, rumoured to be witches, were convicted of the brutal murder of two teenage girls 18 years ago. Shortly after Lilith is released from prison, a young woman is found dead at a farm close to Lilith's old home in South Devon, and DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. As Wesley tries to establish whether Lilith Benley could have killed again, archaeologist Neil Watson discovers a gruesome wax doll at a house that once belonged to a woman hanged for witchcraft in the 17th century.

A teenage girl is strangled and left for dead on a lonely country lane in Devon. The police are baffled when she describes her attacker as having the head of a dog, but when the body of a woman is found mutilated and wrapped in a sheet, DI Wesley Peterson suspects the killer may be performing an ancient ritual linked to the jackal-headed Egyptian god, Anubis. Meanwhile, archaeologist Neil Watson has been called to Varley Castle to catalogue the collection of an Edwardian amateur Egyptologist.

James Pattinson was best known for his novels of adventure on the high seas, and this short story follows his maritime theme. When a man goes overboard on the M.V. Southern Star with just one witness, Captain Perry and his old friend Barton Rice must investigate.

New faces don’t go unnoticed in small Cornish fishing villages, but when two strangers turn up in Pendennick, they soon make their presence known when they attempt to steal a boat, holding a local at gunpoint....

Barbara Roberts, pretty, mischievous and 17, has grown up wanting for nothing. But a long-buried family secret that threatens her happiness is about to be uncovered. Will it deny her the one man she truly loves? And outside of the close-knit mining community of Hillsbridge, war once again looms on the horizon. Youngest of the Hall clan, fate is about to propel Barbara into maturity....

George Hennessey, Detective Chief Inspector at Micklegate Bar Police Station in York, is contented in his work...until the body of ambitious news-hound Cornelius Weekes is discovered. With the help of loyal Detective Sergeant Yellich, Hennessey is determined to solve this case quickly.

This story recounts Sherlock Holmes’ very first case. Having previously treated his deduction skills as a hobby at college, he must quickly turn detective to help a friend in need. An old acquaintance has paid Victor Trevor’s father a visit and seems to be blackmailing him. Holmes must decode a mystery letter to understand why.

Sex, Spies and Scandal is the story of John Vassall, a civil servant who was unmasked as a Soviet spy in 1962. Having been photographed in compromising positions while working at the British embassy in Moscow in 1954, Vassall was blackmailed into handing over secrets from the British Admiralty to his Soviet handlers, both in Moscow and in London, for more than seven years.

When Captain John Fowler discovers his trusted lover is a spy, he must make the ultimate sacrifice for his country before she betrays his secrets to the enemy.

Venice, 1468. Sosia Simeon is a lover of many men in the fabled city, though married to one she despises. On the edge of the Grand Canal, Wendelin von Speyer sets up the first printing press in Venice and looks for the book that will make his fortune. When he publishes Catullus, the poet whose unrequited love inspired the most tender and erotic poems of antiquity, a scandal is set in motion that will change all their lives forever.

Crime writer and reluctant sleuth Ethelred Tressider is handed his strangest case yet. Crime reviewer Henry Holiday is an unlikely murderer who’s convinced he’s killed somebody but doesn’t know who or when. Worryingly, Crispin Vynall, another crime writer who Henry had been drinking with, has vanished. After agreeing to help, Ethelred received a death threat. His impervious agent Elsie Thirkettle encourages Ethelred to continue since it is well worth risking death in exchange for a few good reviews.

When the bodies of two murder victims are discovered within 24 hours of each other at the same location, each with a similar cause of death, the Murder and Serious Crime Squad of New Scotland Yard realise they must be linked. But how? Vicary and his team are drawn into a complex investigation – one which will take them from remote cottages in rural Hampshire to the dark world of inner city sex workers, child abuse within north London suburbia, and the injustice of a long-standing wrongful conviction.

When the snow thaws on London’s Hampstead Heath after a harsh winter, a ghoulish discovery is made that marks the start of a very dangerous case for Detective Inspector Harry Vicary. The body of a man is found on top of a shallow grave containing the battered remains of a young woman. There are no suspicious marks on his corpse and he appears to have frozen to death in a case of misadventure. But what is his connection to the remains below?

Damned by leprosy, Richard FitzEustace must leave his home and family forever. Condemned to shun the company of others he seeks a place of solitude where he can find forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land. One more family obligation remains: a secret promise to his grandmother that he will seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lcy, and press her claim to his estate. Meanwhile, headstrong young Johanna FitzEustace, is distraught.