Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

It is 1919 and Great Britain is still struggling to its feet after the First World War. Progress is slow, even in quiet spots like the village of Broughton Underhill. But moving on is impossible when former police sergeant Herbert Reardon returns to the village, determined to finally find out what happened the night that his daughter was found drowned. However, as Reardon begins to investigate, it becomes clear that secrets still abound.

"I’ve always wanted to see something of the Empire outside Rome." AD 71. Germania Libera: dark, dripping forests inhabited by bloodthirsty barbarians and legendary wild beasts, a furious prophetess who terrorises Rome, and the ghostly spirits of slaughtered Roman legionaries. Enter Falco, an Imperial agent on a special mission: to find the absconding commander of a legion whose loyalty is suspect.

"I still can't believe I've put the bastard away for good!" Petro muttered.' Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine watch and Falco's oldest friend, has finally nailed one of Rome's top criminals. Under Roman law, citizens are not imprisoned but are allowed 'time to depart' into exile outside the Empire. One dark and gloomy dawn, Petro and Falco put the evil Balbinus aboard a ship. But soon after, an outbreak of robbery and murder suggests a new criminal ring has moved into Balbinus' territory.

"The first concern of an author is to do down his colleagues." In the long, hot Roman summer of AD 74, Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. Things get out of hand, as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work.

Rats are always bigger than you expect.' Falco, ancient Rome's hangdog investigator, hates sharing a cell with a rodent - though being bailed by his old mother is almost as embarrassing. His high-born girlfriend can't decide if she wants him, and Titus Caesar's reward for past services is a wet fish. Hoping for a better life, or at least a better apartment, he takes on new clients. On the elegant slopes of the Pincian Hill, three nouveau riche freedmen with two flashy wives are under siege by a clever redhead.

When Kirsten Harbourn is found strangled on her wedding day, DI Wesley Peterson makes some alarming discoveries. Kirsten was being pursued by a stalker, and she had dark secrets her fiancé knew nothing about. But Kirsten's wasn't the only wedding planned to take place that day. At Morbay register office a terrified young girl makes her wedding vows, but a few days later her bridegroom is found dead. Wesley suspects that his death and his bride's subsequent disappearance might be linked to Kirsten's murder.

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine's child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo. A last-minute change in Lamartine's defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence.

Having coffee with a famous footballer would be the highlight of the year for many people. Not so for private eye Billy Rucker. Just hours after meeting Jack Draper - 'Super Jack' to his adoring fans - Billy is standing over the brutalised body of a girl. A girl who was Jack Draper's mistress. Jack had wanted Billy to catch the person who had been stalking him. But now all the evidence points to Super Jack being a cold-blooded killer.

AD 173. The Danube lies frozen. On its banks gather the clans of Sarmatia, their riders winter starved by sickly herds and blighted crops. Petty feuds cast aside and their disparate numbers united in the face of a great enemy. For across the frozen waters stands the mighty Roman Empire, and its Legion marches ever closer.

For years, the Stranger House has stood in the village of Illthwaite, offering refuge to travellers. People like Sam, a brilliant young mathematician, who believes that anything that can't be explained by maths isn't worth explaining. And Miguel, a historian running from a priests' seminary, who sees ghosts. Sam is an experienced young woman, Miguel a 26-year-old virgin.

DS Wesley Peterson, newly arrived in the West Country town of Tradmouth, has his hands full when a child goes missing and a young woman is brutally murdered on a lonely cliff path. Then his old friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, unearths the skeletons of a strangled woman and a newborn baby in the cellar of an ancient merchant's house nearby. As the investigation continues, Wesley begins to suspect that these deaths, centuries apart, may be linked by age-old motives of jealousy, a sexual obsession and desperate longing.

Bernard Cribbins's life has been an eventful one. In 1943, he left school aged fourteen and joined Oldham Repertory Company where he earned fifteen bob for a seventy-hour week. After being called up for National Service in 1946 he became a paratrooper and spent several months in Palestine being shot at. On returning home, and to the theatre, Bernard was eventually approached by George Martin, then an A&R man for Parlophone Records, who suggested he made a record.

In the mid-1990s, Kevin Keegan brought sporting romance and expectation of trophies to Newcastle, Sunderland moved the the Stadium of Light backed by a wealthy consortium, Middlesbrough signed one of the best Brazilians of the era and won their first major trophy - even little Darlington had a former safe-cracker turned kitchen magnate in charge, promising the world. The region even provided England's two key players in Euro 96 in Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne - the far corner seemed destined to become the centre of England's footballing world. But it never happened.

"All the problems I know about are family ones." A frightened child approaches Roman informer Falco, pleading for help. Nobody believes Gaia's story that a relation wants to kill her--and neither does he. Beset by his own family troubles, by his new responsibilities as procurator of the sacred poultry, and by the continuing search for a new partner, Falco turns her away. Immediately he regrets it. Gaia has been selected as the new Vestal Virgin, and when she disappears Falco is officially asked to investigate.

A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection
What should you do if the world has turned against you? When Father Anselm is asked this question by an old man at Larkwood Priory, his response is to have greater resonance than he could ever have imagined. For that evening the old man returns, demanding the protection of the church. His name is Eduard Schwermann and he is wanted by the police as a suspected war criminal.

When the body of hotel owner Piet Jansen is discovered amid the ruins of an archaeological site by the Nile, it looks like a routine investigation for Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police. But the more he learns about Jansen, the more he is reminded of the brutal murder, some years earlier, of an Israeli woman at Karnak for which he always suspected the wrong man was convicted.

Four strangers arrive at the solicitors’ office of Puckle, Puckle, and Nunnery. They have never met and have no idea why they have been invited. But they - along with a missing man - are descendants of the late Algernon George Culver Mayton, the inventor of 'Mayton’s Marvellous Mixture', and each entitled to a portion of the Mayton fortune. But before they can split the money, the missing man must be found. They begin their search, but then Detective Sloan receives a call that one of the legatees has died following an attack of food poisoning....

What did he eat last? Whom did he eat, in fact? Lumbered with working alongside reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Falco has the perfect plan to make money - he will assist Vespasian in the Emperor's 'Great Census' of AD 73. His potential fee could finally allow him to join the middle ranks and be worthy of long-suffering Helena Justina. Unexpectedly confronted with the murder of a man-eating lion, Falco is distracted from his original task, uncovering a bitter rivalry between the gladiators' trainers.

When a counterfeit currency racket comes to light on the French Riviera, Detective Inspector Meredith is sent speeding southwards out of the London murk to the warmth and glitter of the Mediterranean. Along with Inspector Blampignon, an amiable policeman from Nice, Meredith must trace the whereabouts of Chalky Cobbett, crook and forger.

For the most part, the dead man received public sympathy. A decent, hardworking chap, with not an enemy anywhere. People were surprised that anybody should want to kill Jim. But Jim has been drowned in the Dumb River, near Ely, miles from his Yorkshire home. His body has been discovered before the killer intended – disturbed by a torrential flood. It's up to Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard to trace the mystery of the murder to its source, leaving waves of scandal and sensation in his wake.