Showing results by narrator "Mike Grady" in All Categories

October 1937. Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, sets off to Essex to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley's daughter, Miriam, continues to cause chaos, and his assistant, Stephen Sefton, continues to slide deeper into depression and despair. Morley is an honorary guest at the Colchester Oyster Festival. But when the mayor dies suddenly at the civic reception, suspicion falls on his fellow councillors. Is it a case of food poisoning? Or could it be...murder?

From a garden shed laboratory where he manufactured the greatest stink in the world to a tent high in the Arctic in pursuit of fossils, this is a story of obsession and love of nature, flavoured with the peculiarities and restrictions of post-war Britain. Fortey tells the story of following his father down riverbanks to fish for trout, and also of his father's shocking death. He unfolds his early passions–fungi, ammonite hunting and eyeing up bird's eggs. He evokes with warmth and wit how the natural world started out as his playground and refuge, then became his life's work.

Even in the era of glasnost, a defector is worth having, especially if he is a senior computer specialist in Russian military intelligence. But when the defection goes wrong, the British are left with three bodies and two inadequate clues to the nature of the information they might have been offered, and which now lies buried somewhere in the collective memories of David Audley and his one-time colleague Major Peter Richardson.

Before May 2011 the top demographics experts of the United Nations had suggested that world population would peak at 9.1 billion in 2100, and then fall to 8.5 billion people by 2150. In contrast, the 2011 revision suggested that 9.1 billion would be achieved much earlier, maybe by 2050 or before, and by 2100 there would be 10.1 billion of us. What's more, they implied that global human population might still be slightly rising in our total numbers a century from now. So what shall we do?

When you are an inoffensive retired librarian with bitter personal experience of Evil Talking Cats, do you rescue a kitten from the cold on a December night? Do you follow up news items about cats digging in graveyards? Do you inquire into long-ago cats who voyaged around the world with Captain Cook? Well, yes. If you are Alec Charlesworth, that is precisely what you do - with unexpected and terrifying consequences.

For four characters the 500 quid worry bead in their pocket may be both a blessing and a curse. For elderly Dr Zachary Busner, it's his lifeline to his autistic grandson Ben, whose own connection with technology is, in turn, a vital one. For MI6 agent Jonathan De'Ath, aka 'the Butcher', the phone may reveal his best kept secret of all: that Colonel Gawain Thomas is his lover.

Fern is too busy making sure other people feel good about themselves to give much thought to her own happiness. But somehow, without her noticing, life has run away from her. Suddenly, Fern realises her vintage clothes business is struggling, and the casual relationship she’d always thought she was happy in doesn’t look so appealing. But sometimes, karma really does come through. And when Fern goes out of her way to help 85-year-old Dinah, little does she realise their new friendship will change her life. Dinah may have troubles in her past, but she’s lived and loved to the full.

On a voyage toward the boundaries of the known universe, nine misfit academics seek out first contact with a shadowy alien race. But another enigma is the Nightflyer itself, a cybernetic wonder with an elusive captain no one has ever seen in the flesh. Soon, however, the crew discovers that their greatest mystery - and most dangerous threat - is an unexpected force aboard the ship wielding a thirst for blood and terror....

Resnick goes to London to the funeral of Ed Silver, a friend and jazz saxophonist. While there he encounters Brenda, a young runaway from Kirkby-in-Ashfield near Nottingham, now working as a prostitute around Kings Cross, and goes to hear Spike Robinson at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho.

Three brand-new adventures for glamorous bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori. 'Dead Drop' by Mark Wright. Dwarfed by the burning star of the Hyspero system, two devastating battle fleets face each other across the stars. On one side the Dyarid Primary Vanguard, commanded by Admiral Salaron aboard the starship Custodian. On the other a Chtzin battle cluster.

Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasizing about hookers.

He is idle, boastful, thin skinned and egotistic. He has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no idea and no words with which to express them. Could he, in that case, be the very leader to make the country great again?

The second Spoken Ink collection of superb short stories by H. G. Wells, who was a master of the form. Humour and wit abound in his writing, as does sharp social observation. Among the 17 stories in this collection, The Plattner Story tells of a chemistry teacher who analyses a most unusual powder one of the boys brings to class, in The Cone a woman married to a bullying industrialist is having an affair with his young friend.

From exciting debut author Justin Fisher comes this rip-roaring, gripping new magical adventure. Perfect for fans of House of Secrets. Ned Waddlesworth has always considered his world to be exceptionally ordinary. Until the day he discovers it isn't. At all. Because on Ned's 13th birthday, he discovers that everything magical he's ever read about or imagined is real. And without him, the world will soon be engulfed in monstrous beasts and beings.

Welcome to Westmorland. Perhaps the most scenic county in England! Home of the poets! Land of the great artists! District of the Great lakes! And the scene of a mysterious crime.... Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, once again sets off in his Lagonda to continue his history of England, The County Guides.

A forester's fascinating stories backed by the latest scientific research illustrate how trees nurture and talk to each other. Are trees social beings? In this international best seller - which has sold more than 320,000 copies in Germany alone - forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families.

The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate Calico Jack Rackham. New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain 'Calico' Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action.

It is 1564. Catholic herald William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, is the custodian of a highly dangerous document. When it is stolen, Clarenceux immediately suspects a group of Catholic sympathisers, the self-styled Knights of the Round Table. Soon Clarenceux enters a nightmare of suspicion, deception, and conspiracy. Where has the document gone? Who really took it? And why?

The second book in the spellbinding, epic adventure series from 'the Godmother of Fantasy', Diana Wynne Jones. For centuries Dalemark has been a land divided by the warring earldoms of the North and South. Now, with the help of the Undying, the mysterious gods of Dalemark, four extraordinary young people must join forces to reunify their beloved land. After his father mysteriously goes missing, Mitt joins a group of freedom fighters plotting to overthrow the tyrannical ruler of Holand.

Cream teas! School dinners! Satanic surfers! Join our heroes as they follow up The Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of...Death in Devon. Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley's daughter, Miriam, and his assistant, Stephen Sefton, pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. Morley has been invited to give the Founder's Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon.

Nigel Jones depicts every facet of a year that changed Britain for ever. From gun-running in Ulster, to an attack by suffragettes on a Velasquez painting in the National Gallery; from the opening of London's first nightclub, to the embarking for Belgium of the British Expeditionary Force, he traces the events of a momentous year from its benign domestic beginnings to its descent into the nightmare of European war.