Showing results by narrator "Michael Page" in All Categories

At the dawn of the thirteenth century, Constantinople stood as the bastion of Christianity in Eastern Europe. The capital city of the Byzantine Empire, it was a center of art, culture, and commerce that had commanded trading routes between Asia, Russia, and Europe for hundreds of years. But in 1204, the city suffered a devastating attack that would spell the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Historian Ernle Bradford brings to life this powerful tale of envy and greed, demonstrating the far-reaching consequences this siege would have across Europe for centuries to come.

The Scarlet Pimpernel makes daring raid after daring raid into the heart of France to save aristocrats condemned to the guillotine. At each rescue, he leaves his calling card: a small, blood-red flower--a pimpernel--mocking the power of Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety.

From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the 15th, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. The Golden Rhinoceros brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking listeners from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and Southern Africa. 

The German Revolution of November 1918 is nowadays largely forgotten outside Germany. It is generally regarded as a failure even by those who have heard of it, a missed opportunity that paved the way for the rise of the Nazis and the catastrophe to come. Robert Gerwarth argues here that to view the German Revolution in this way is a serious misjudgment. Not only did it bring down the authoritarian monarchy of the Hohenzollern, it also brought into being the first ever German democracy in an amazingly bloodless way.

The President is coming to London, but not to an entirely warm welcome. A fanatical mullah is offering a blessing to anyone who will assassinate the President, and though most London Muslims think the mullah has crossed the line, a few think otherwise. Urgently, Sean Dillon, General Charles Ferguson, and the rest of the small band known as the “Prime Minister’s private army” are called in, augmented by an extra-ordinary new recruit, an intelligence captain and Afghan war hero named Sara Gideon.

Locals call it the Rio das Mortes - the treacherous Brazilian river where the Huna tribe is known to kill all who trespass. Despite the river’s deadly reputation, pilot Neil Mallory agrees to fly supplies to outposts there in hopes of making enough money to buy his passage back to England. But when he and fellow pilot Sam Hannah discover a field of massacred missionaries shot through with the Huna’s arrows, they decide to strike out along the River of Death to stage a daring rescue of the two nuns who are missing.

Sean Dillon once again finds himself facing the murderous Rashid family and their oil-rich dynasty. After Kate Rashid watched her brothers’ lives being taken one by one as Sean Dillon and his undercover team foiled their plot to kill the president, she vowed to seek revenge. Now Sean Dillon is in her sights, but her plot to seek vengeance reaches far beyond the British agent or his team. She’ll get even with Dillon, White House operative Blake Johnson - even the US President if she needs to - and only she knows when or how.

In the early days of World War II, nations were forced to choose sides in the epic battle that would change history forever. But for two brothers, fate had already made the choice. Separated as boys, Max and Harry Kelso have grown up to become ace fighter pilots--Max with the German Luftwaffe and Harry in Britain's RAF. Now, the machinery of war has set in motion an intrigue so devious, so filled with peril, that it will require them to question everything they know, everything they hold most dear....

The powerful Lord complains loudly to the local bishop, who asks Father Max Tudor, vicar of Nether Monkslip and former MI5 agent, to investigate. Just as Max comes to believe the poisoning was accidental, a body is discovered in the cloister well. Can Max Tudor solve the case and restore order in time to attend his own nuptials?

In the past few years, the killing and capture of many Al-Qaeda leaders has left the terrorist organization wounded - but by no means dead. And they intend to prove it. On a dark summer night, two Chechen mercenaries emerge from the waters off Nantucket to kill a high-value target, the former president of the United States, Jake Cazalet. Unfortunately for them, Cazalet has guests with him, including black ops specialist Sean Dillon and his colleague, Afghan war hero Captain Sara Gideon.

Dispatched by the President to report on the state of troubled Kosovo, his trusted agent , Blake Johnson, runs into a military man there named Harry Miller, who has the same task from the British Prime Minister. They band together just in time to stop a Russian officer from torching a mosque - or rather, Miller stops him, with a bullet to the forehead.

This novel is indeed a morality tale about the hazards of egotistical self-indulgence. Dorian Grey's pact with evil allows his portrait to take on his many sins and degradations while his physical appearance remains youthful. Over the years as he becomes cruel and vicious, even murderous, Dorian's young and perfect body is no longer enough to salvage his deteriorating mind and morality. Will justice and good prevail?

Vicar Max Tudor, reveling in his new-found personal happiness with Awena Owen, feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. With Awena away, he looks forward to a dinner that includes newcomers to the village like West End dramatist Thaddeus Bottle and his downtrodden wife Melinda. But when one of the dinner guests is found dead in the pre-dawn hours, Max knows a poisonous atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip.

Lord and Lady Baaden-Boomethistle have been in residence for some weeks now, and the villagers are hoping for a return to the good old days, when the lord of the manor sprinkled benefits across the village like fairy dust. Father Max Tudor's invitation to dinner at the Hall comes as a welcome novelty; it will be his first time meeting the famous family that once held sway in the area.

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.

All that stands between the advancing army of trolls and the endangered fortress of Phylangan is a coalition force led by Alfadas, human hero and protector. He’s amassed his own legion of swordsmen, elves, and ragtag thieves to stave off the enemy. And the next move they make could be the most dangerous one of all. Those Alfadas has left behind are more vulnerable than ever - including his star-crossed elven love; their newborn child; and Queen Emerelle herself, who remains comatose and is powerless to safeguard her compromised kingdom.

In Edinburgh you're never far from a peaceful spot, or from a hellish one either. Now, in the heart of summer, in the midst of a nationalist festival, Inspector John Rebus is on the murder case of a young man left hanging in a spot where his screams would never be heard. To find the victim's identity - and his killer - Rebus searches from Edinburgh's most violent neighborhood to Belfast, Northern Ireland, among petty thugs, gunrunners, and heavyweight criminals. But before Rebus can get to the truth, he's bloodied by the dream of society's madmen - and staring into the glint of a killer's eyes.

After a botched assassination attempt on the President of the United States, White House operative Blake Johnson and his opposite number in British intelligence Sean Dillon set out to trace the source of the havoc. Someone is recruiting a shadowy network of terrorists, and that man is not pleased by the interference. Soon he will target them all: Johnson, Dillon, Dillon's colleagues. And one of them will fall...

King Bridei is a man with a mission. His wish to unite his kingdom seems almost within his grasp but there are forces working to undo his dream. He sends Faolan, his most trusted advisor (who is also a master assassin and spymaster) out into the world to ferret out the truth of who is friend and who is foe. Along the way Faolan will uncover many truths. Some may hold the key to Bridei's future. But more important, they may unlock the secrets that Faolan has held deep within his soul for decades. And offer him the chance of redemption.

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.