Showing results by narrator "Robin Sachs" in All Categories

Rare Stamps offers a revealing insight into the life of an actor and the making of a man. Beginning with an Academy Award nomination for Billy Budd in 1962, Terence Stamp was called "the most beautiful man alive," only to be discarded at the end of the decade with the words "we're looking for a younger Terence Stamp." Soul searching, he traveled alone through India, staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel while studying above a public lavatory with a chain-smoking guru, only to wind up back in London and broke by 1984.

A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate, Give Me Everything You Have chronicles the author's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled "verbal terrorist", who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him". Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice, and as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat.

Catch the holiday spirit with this magical collection of beloved Christmas tales. Christmas favorites from L.M. Montgomery, O. Henry, Willa Cather, Hans Christian Anderson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bret Harte and Anthony Trollope are lovingly recorded and presented here in one enchanting volume.

Rebecca Barnhouse weaves Norse gods, blood feuds, and a terrifying dragon into this spectacular retelling of the end of the Old English poem Beowulf. When he was a baby, Rune washed up onshore in a boat, along with a sword and a pendant bearing the runes that gave him his nickname. Some people thought he was a sacrifice to the gods and wanted to send him right back to the sea. Luckily for Rune, King Beowulf disagreed. He lifted the boy from the boat and gave him to Amma, a wise woman living on a farm far removed from the king’s hall, to raise as she saw fit.

Roman Halter was a spirited, optimistic schoolboy in 1939 when he and his family gathered behind the curtains to watch the Volksdeutsche (German Polish) neighbors of their small town in western Poland greet the arrival of Hitler's armies with kisses and swastika flags. Within days, the family home had been seized, 12-year-old Roman had become a slave of the local SS chief, and, returning from an errand, he silently witnessed his Jewish classmates being bayoneted to death by soldiers at the edge of town. So began his remarkable six-year journey through some of the darkest caverns of Nazi Europe....

Originally published in the 1876 Christmas edition of The Graphic, Christmas at Thompson Hall is a Victorian tale concerning the proper Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their journey from southern France to Thompson Hall to celebrate Christmas with their relatives - a trip that becomes a comedy of errors once Mr. Brown's throat condition, a malady that almost prevented the trip entirely, worsens.

Three young women have been brutally assaulted and murdered in the city of Philadelphia. Lieutenant William Fogarty, a time-toughened cop hardened by personal tragedy, is shocked by the brutality of the crimes. His only lead comes from medical examiner Josef Tanaka. Half Japanese and half American, Tanaka, a skilled practitioner of the martial arts, claims to recognize the method used in the attacks: a karate strike known as nukite, or spear hand. Fogarty has nowhere else to turn.

It is 1937, and Captain Alexei Korolev finds himself on an airplane bound for Odessa after the suspicious suicide of a loyal young party member who supposedly had an illicit relationship with the party director. His instructions are to determine if her suicide was actually a cover-up for murder, and if so, to find her killer. She was working on the set of a movie subsidized by the state, and the pool of possible suspects is large and daunting. Korolev finds help from several quarters, but none of them can make up for the one important fact of his case which he cannot discuss.

A Hunger for the Infinite, which first appeared in Robert Silverberg's Far Horizons anthology, is a novella that takes place in the universe of "The Galactic Center Saga", detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life. Here, the pilots had made it to True Center in order to destroy something, anything, important to the Mechs, but Paris had something else on his mind. A story of the Mantis, and the decline of humans beginning in 3600 AD.

Sandra Worth's Crown of Destiny, her second novel in a trilogy about Richard III, picks up shortly after the first book's conclusion, with Richard finally wed and attempting to safeguard his new family from the machinations of his brother Edward IV's court. This is a fast listen, but one that never lags. Richard grows in this unusual portrayal of a humane man in an inhumane time, one who must confront challenging choices that threaten to rend his world apart, and contend with the own darkness in his own nature.

"Housekeeper or housewife?" the soldier asks Silvana as she and eight-year-old Aurek board the ship that will take them from Poland to England at the end of World War II. There her husband, Janusz, is already waiting for them at the little house at 22 Britannia Road. But the war has changed them all so utterly that they'll barely recognize one another when they are reunited.

It seems the city of Oslo has a serial killer on its hands, and detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case. Only he is not happy with his colleague Tom Waaler, whom he suspects of arms smuggling and murder. A previous Jo Nesbø title was voted best Norwegian crime novel of all time.

A pregnant woman, believed killed in a bridge accident in the Scottish Highlands, seizes her chance to disappear from her uncaring husband. Determined to safeguard her baby’s future and reinvent herself, she befriends illegal immigrant Silva, whose husband Stefan and daughter Anna, as she alone knows, have died in her place. As the bridge is rebuilt, the two women build a precarious existence in a makeshift home by the river.

Few were disappointed when Raoul Vernet was found with his head bashed in, dead in a pool of his own blood. On vacation in England, the Belgian seducer comes to visit Matilda, an old flame from a few years before. She agrees despite suspicions that Vernet has been deploying his legendary charm on another member of the family: young Rosie, who has returned from her Swiss boarding school carrying a child. None of the family members were in the house when Raoul was killed, but all were within a fog-choked London mile.

When an unidentified young Indian bride is ritualistically murdered, Detective Inspector Tom Kendrick and forensic anthropologist Elizabeth Bell are mobilized to hunt down the perpetrators. But Kali keeps spinning her web. Elizabeth finds herself in mortal danger, and a criminal network involved in illegal immigration and drug production gradually emerges from the shadows. Meanwhile, small-time crook Suyaal Ackhbaar is being blackmailed by a vicious gang lord....

When a number of women are reported missing in Glasgow, the specter of a previous spate of unsolved disappearances in the city rears its head. Journalist Ray Bissett is drawn into the case when his daughter joins the ranks of the missing. Ambitious police detective Tom Kendrick won’t let Ray forget a terrible incident from his past that resulted in the death of a young boy. The streets of Glasgow are haunted by the ghosts of the missing - and an artist driven by a deadly inspiration.

On a summer's day in June 1761, astronomers all over the world cast their eyes to the sky to witness a rare astronomical event: the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. It was one of the most important collaborations of scientific history, as by racing to different points around the world and comparing results, these men hoped to unlock the key to one of the most pressing questions of the Enlightenment: the distance between the Earth and the sun, which would allow them to calculate the dimensions of our solar system.

Jacob Marlowe has lost the will to live. For two centuries he has wandered the world, enslaved by his lunatic appetites and tormented by the memory of his first and most monstrous crime. Now, the last of his kind, he knows he can't go on.But as Jake counts down to suicide, a violent murder and an extraordinary meeting plunge him straight back into the desperate pursuit of life.

Originally published in a 1892 edition of Strand Magazine, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" was one of 12 short stories to be included in the first Sherlock Holmes collection, the 1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In this tale, Holmes and Watson investigate two cases - one involving a Christmas goose and a hat and the other, the theft of the Blue Carbuncle, a priceless jewel. The cases are quickly revealed to be intertwined, and the spirit of the holidays influences the tale's end.

1944: Daniel, a soldier, legendary among the Norwegians fighting the advance of Bolshevism on the Russian front, is killed. Two years later, a wounded soldier wakes up in a Vienna hospital. He becomes involved with a young nurse, the consequences of which will ripple forward to the turn of the next century. 1999: Harry Hole, alone again after having caused an embarrassment in the line of duty, has been promoted to inspector and has surveillance duties. He is assigned the task of monitoring neo-Nazi activities; fairly mundane until a report of a rare gun being fired sparks his interest.