Showing results by narrator "David Thorpe" in All Categories

A bold new dramatisation of Thomas Hardy’s classic, giving his story a 21st-century resonance. Tess Durbeyfield is driven by poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urberville family. But meeting her cousin Alec proves to be her downfall. This classic criticism of social convention is given a new treatment in this full-cast adaptation which blows away the shepherd's pipe and heritage stereotype, foregrounding Hardy's social and sexual radicalism.

Written in diary entries from a Polish scholar, this short story features a mysterious femme fatale, Medea, who is responsible for the deaths of five men, including her husbands. The scholar is soon cast under her spell from behind the grave.

Best-selling crime author Joseph Newton is on board a train when he meets a man fascinated by the idea of a murder so perfectly simple it would be impossible to solve. Critical of the elaborate plots in Newton’s novels, the man is keen to demonstrate to the author just how he would carry out the seemingly undetectable crime.

When an inmate is found unresponsive in his high security cell at Belmarsh prison, he's rushed to hospital for treatment. The prisoner is human trafficker and international fixer Tristan Huxley, a man a lot of people have good reason to want dead. But Huxley mysteriously never makes it to the hospital. He may have plenty of enemies but it seems he has some very powerful friends too.

John Milton is working in a hotel kitchen while searching for information on the Group Fifteen agent who betrayed him in Russia. His plans are upended when a deadly shooting places an innocent young girl in his path. Aided by an enigmatic woman he meets in the hotel, he rescues the girl and plunges headfirst into a deadly feud between two criminal families feuding in the run-up to a high-stakes MMA fight. In the underbelly of the city, where alliances are as brittle as glass, Milton must navigate through treacherous secrets and betrayals.

An Englishman in Bombay strikes up a friendship with postcard-seller Baburao Munshi, after allowing him credit to sell a selection of books from his office. As Baburao’s bookselling success grows, so does the two men’s friendship. Yet when Baburao’s son is old enough to be involved in the business, so begins a war of attrition between father and son.

Nicolas Picard is riding home from Exeter when he's attacked by a snarling wildcat. Yet, when the body is found, there are lacerations on his neck put there by a human hand. He is involved in a land dispute and his wife claims to be the benefactor on his behalf. Picard's mistress emerges to stake her claim then a third woman—wife of the deceased original owner of the land—comes forward. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret have three human wildcats trying to tear out each other's throats.

48 assassinations - from Archduke Franz Ferdinand to Osama Bin Laden - that changed the world. We live in an age of asymmetric warfare. Huge armies no longer face each other on the battlefield. Instead, heads of major powers and lone assassins (or martyrs) target each other to pursue their agendas. President Donald Trump felt it necessary to use drones to blow away the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Qasem Soleimani, and President Barack Obama felt fully justified in sending in US Navy SEALs to take out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Stories by: Desmond Barry, Ken Bruen, Stewart Home, Barry Adamson, Michael Ward, Sylvie Simmons, Daniel Bennett, Cathi Unsworth, Max Décharné, Martyn Waites, Joolz Denby, John Williams, Jerry Sykes, Mark Pilkington, Joe McNally, Patrick McCabe, and Ken Hollings. Cathi Unsworth moved to Ladbroke Grove in 1987 and has stayed there ever since. She began a career in rock writing with Sounds and Melody Maker, before co-editing the arts journal Purr and then Bizarre magazine. Her first novel, The Not Knowing, was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2005.

From the vaults of the British Library comes a new anthology celebrating the best works of forgotten, never-since-republished supernatural fiction from the early 20th century. Waiting within are malevolent spirits eager to possess the living and mysterious spectral guardians - a diverse host of phantoms exhumed from the rare pages of literary magazines and newspaper serials to thrill once more.

DI Liam McLusky, freshly transferred from Southampton and just recovered from having been injured in the line of duty, has no time to settle in before he is pushed in at the deep end in a new and unfamiliar city. Everyday objects, transformed into explosive devises by a man trying to revenge himself on the world for reasons unknown, are being left across Bristol, maiming or killing those who pick them up.

"Carnivorine" follows the tale of Ellis Graham, who has been asked to find his friend’s lost son, Julius. Ellis heads to Europe in his search, only to find Julius on the brink of a remarkable discovery about carnivorous plants.

It's 1665. Silas is killing plague victims for fun; the ready supply of victims means that he can satiate his desires easily. In 2015, at the Crossrail dig in London, two bodies are found, just as a spate of murders takes place. As the police rush to put together the links between the two, the modern-day serial-killer fights to stay ahead of them enough to kill again. DI Mark Fairgreaves and his team must work together to put together the pieces before they lose one of their own.

Big Ben chimes in the first seconds of the first day of 1900, the start of a fresh century. Inside London's oldest gaol, preparations are afoot to hang Victorian England's deadliest assassin, a man wanted for two decades' worth of murders. Cold-blooded killer Simeon Lynch has lived a brutal and glorious life in the employ of the House of Moriarty - the most feared criminal enterprise in the world. Now, as he faces the noose, Simeon learns dark truths about his master, about Sherlock Holmes and about his own past.

Michael Tate has not had an easy life. With his father in prison, and his mother dead, Michael was sent to Woodside Children’s Home. Now an adult, Michael wakes up in hospital from a coma suffering from amnesia and paralysis. Confused and terrified, he is charged with the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend, Becky. He also learns he attempted to end his own life. Detective Inspector John Carver is determined that Michael is sent to prison. With no way of defending himself, Michael is left in his hospital bed awaiting transfer to remand. But then strange things begin to happen....

When a severed hand is found in an abandoned flat, Detective Jake Porter and his partner Nick Styles are able to DNA match the limb to the owner, Natasha Barclay, who has not been seen in decades. But why has no-one been looking for her? It seems that Natasha's family are the people who can least be trusted. Delving into the details behind her disappearance and discovering links to another investigation, a tragic family history begins to take on a darker twist. Hampered by a widespread fear of a local heavy, as well as internal politics and possible corruption within the force, Porter and Styles are digging for answers. But will what they find ever see the light of day?

This is the story of generations of parents, Britain's richest and grandest, who believed that being miserable at school was necessary to make a good and successful citizen. Childish suffering was a price they accepted for the preservation of their class and their entitlement. The children who were moulded by this misery and abuse went on - as they still do - to run Britain's public institutions and private companies.

Everybody likes Andrew. But they don't really know him. They know what he's told them - that he's happily married with two kids. Living the kind of life that's either so boring it's true, or so perfect it's a lie. Peggy arrives in Andrew's life in a burst of kindness and possibility. For the first time in ages, Andrew feels alive again. So now that he has everything to lose, can he risk it all and tell Peggy the truth?

Ben Jewell has hit a breaking point. His 10-year-old son, Jonah, has severe autism, and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope. When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father. In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk, two who won't - are thrown together.

England 1321: Deep in the countryside lies an isolate village governed by a sinister regime of Owl Masters. But their dark status quo is disturbed by the arrival of a house of religious women. Why do their crops succeed when village crops fail, their cattle survive despite the plague? Accusations of witchcraft and heresy run rife, while the Owl Masters rain down hellfire and torment on the women, who must look to their faith to save them from the lengthening shadow of evil... a shadow with predatory, terrifying talons.