Showing results by narrator "Michael Page" in All Categories

Putin and the Russians have suffered too many killings of their own people in the past. Now they want the whole of the "prime minister's private army" wiped out, including Blake Johnson and Charles Ferguson. Somebody is after them: Blake; Harry Miller; his sister, Monica; Harry Salter; and Billy. The only people spared are Roper and Dillon. After surviving a car bomb, Ferguson heads a desperate search to uncover the perpetrator.

The brooding peace that hangs over Parthia is shattered by a murder that triggers the final confrontation that will decide who rules the empire. Pacorus leads his veteran army east to destroy, once and for all, the forces of his implacable enemies, Mithridates and Narses. But his foes have been waiting for this moment, and what Pacorus believes will be a short campaign will turn into a long war that will culminate in the bloodiest battle in the history of the Parthian Empire.

Selchester Castle in 1953 sits quiet and near-empty, its corridors echoing with glories of the past. Or so it seems to intelligence officer Hugo Hawksworth, wounded on a secret mission and now reluctantly assuming an altogether less perilous role at Selchester.

In this indispensable volume, one of America's ranking scholars combines a life's work of research and teaching with the art of lively narration. Both authoritative and beautifully told, The Middle Ages is the full story of the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance - a time that saw the rise of kings and emperors, the flowering of knighthood, the development of Europe, the increasing power of the Catholic Church, and the advent of the middle class.

When the body of the glamorous film star Margot Browne washes ashore, Max's former colleague, Patrice Logan, requests his help. It's a perfect closed-circle murder: Margot must have been killed by one of the actors, stylists, scriptwriters, or second-tier royalty aboard the yacht. Patrice suspects the yacht's owner, a playboy film director she's been keeping tabs on for smuggling, but Max isn't so sure.

History remembers Attila, the leader of the Huns, as the Romans perceived him: a savage barbarian brutally inflicting terror on whoever crossed his path. Following Attila and the Huns from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the court of Constantinople, Christopher Kelly portrays Attila in a compelling new light, uncovering an unlikely marriage proposal, a long-standing relationship with a treacherous Roman general, and a thwarted assassination plot. 

One bitter Midwinter's Eve, everything changes when Bridei finds a child on their doorstep - a child abandoned by the Fair Folk. It is the height of ill fortune to have truck with the Fair Folk, and all in the area counsel the babe's death. But Bridei sees an old and precious magic at work and, heedless of the danger, fights to save the child. Broichan is wary but relents, for Bridei must grow to be his own man and make his own decisions.

A retired judge is shot dead outside the Dog and Gun inn in the remote Yorkshire village of Niddersgill. There's a witness who saw everything, and the gunman's on the run; the case should be open-and-shut for DCI Jim Oldroyd. But the murderer had no motive for wanting Sandy Fraser dead and, what's more, no trace of him can be found.

In the fifth year of conflict, the master plan for the invasion of Hitler’s Channel stronghold is the Allies’ greatest secret. National security demands it doesn’t fall into enemy hands. So when Colonel Hugh Kelso is pulled from the sea off German-occupied Jersey in April 1944, a major crisis erupts. Because Kelso is still alive and knows the exact details of the imminent invasion, to ensure the success of their offensive, the Allies launch a suicidal mission to rescue the Colonel...or silence him forever.

In a shadowy, crumbling Edinburgh housing development, a junkie lies dead of an overdose, his body surrounded by signs of Satanic worship. Inspector John Rebus could call it an accident. But won’t. Now he’s got to search the city, from the tunnels of its dark underbelly to the private sanctum of the upper crust, to find the perfect hiding place for a killer.

Steeped in a history of award-winning Yorkshire ale, the town of Markham boasts not one but two breweries. Richard Foster runs one; his sister, Emily, along with her partner, Janice, runs the other. And not without some resentment. The unwelcome return of the town’s former bad boy, Brendan Scholes, threatens to ignite the sibling rivalry further. Scholes claims to have found the long-lost secret recipe to the beer that made Richard and Emily’s father famous, and he wants money.

Meticulously researched by a senior private banker now turned historian, No More Champagne reveals for the first time the full extent of the iconic British war leader's private struggle to maintain a way of life instilled by his upbringing and expected of his public position. Lough uses Churchill's own most private records, many never researched before, to chronicle his family's chronic shortage of money, his own extravagance, and his recurring losses from gambling or trading in shares and currencies.

An assembly of family, friends, lovers, and enemies are ensnared by the long-running court case Jarndyce and Jarndyce. For orphan Esther Summerson, it might lead to the truth of her parentage. The arrogant Lady Dedlock fears the legal tangle could expose her secret. For the malevolent solicitor Mr. Tulkinghorn, the costly dispute is a gainful opportunity. As for John Jarndyce, Esther’s guardian and master of Bleak House, it’s a chance to correct the past. When questions of inheritance become a trigger for murder, the sharp-eyed Inspector Bucket enters the fray.

Northamptonshire, 1810: As a new canal network snakes across the landscape, a vicious mob stakes its claim to the county. Every local constable is out on the hunt for the ruthless Panther Gang. When an elderly man is robbed and murdered in sleepy Middleton, the beleaguered magistrates send for help from London's Bow Street Police Office.

A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London. The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped.

With the papacy embattled in recent years, it is essential to have the perspective of one of the world's most accomplished historians. In Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich captures nearly 2,000 years of inspiration and devotion, intrigue and scandal. The men (and maybe one woman) who have held this position of infallible power over millions have ranged from heroes to rogues, admirably wise to utterly decadent.

Halloween, Whitby. DCI Jim Oldroyd’s daughter Louise is in town with friends for a goth festival. But their visit to an escape room ends in bloody murder when one of the group stabs his girlfriend and flees the scene. It’s a crime with three witnesses - but Louise refuses to take what she saw at face value. Oldroyd and DS Carter are called in to solve the case, assisted from the sidelines by Louise. But the closer they investigate, the more complex the web of deceit appears. This is no straightforward crime of passion.

Even after the legendary evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940 there were still large British formations fighting the Germans alongside their French allies. After mounting a vigorous counterattack at Abbeville and then engaging a tough defense along the Somme, the British were forced to conduct a second evacuation from the ports of Le Havre, Cherbourg, Brest, and St. Nazaire. Case Red captures the drama of the final three weeks of military operations in France in June 1940.

Emma Bovary, daughter of an uneducated farmer and wife of a dull doctor in northern France, harbors a passion for everything beyond her grasp - sophistication, romance, love, and deliverance from her banal provincial life. Motivated by the primal, idealized, and vain, she seeks adventure. And with each new endeavor, Emma sets for herself an inevitable and inescapable trap.

Saint Augustine is one of the most influential figures in all of Christianity, yet his path to sainthood was by no means assured. Born in AD 354 to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Augustine spent the first 30 years of his life struggling to understand the nature of God and his world. He learned about Christianity as a child but was never baptized, choosing instead to immerse himself in the study of rhetoric, Manicheanism, and then Neoplatonism - all the while indulging in a life of lust and greed.