Showing results by narrator "Jeff Harding" in All Categories

A retired war pilot is travelling the French countryside. Entranced by the natural beauty of the area when he stops to rest by a lake, he sees visions of beautiful tree women who seek his protection.

The story is set in Padua and follows botanist Giacomo Rappaccini’s garden of poisonous plants. A student from the university of Padua falls for a maiden in the luscious garden, but he soon learns some troubling information about his beloved’s true nature.

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Evil Roots. Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, this short story by Conan Doyle preceded the famous detective by almost a decade. After an altercation, a disgruntled American storms off into the night, only to disappear mysteriously. Could a giant flytrap really be capable of engulfing an adult victim?

BBC Audio present six fantastic tales of twisted futures and times beyond tomorrow. Inspired by the pulp sci-fi of '50s America, these perfectly pitched parodies are redolent of the atomic age—when the space race was at its height, Cold War paranoia was at fever pitch and the future seemed both thrilling and terrifying.

There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But listeners should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.

Tom Keeler was done with Alaska, but Alaska wasn’t done with him. After four months working a fishing boat he’s on his way to a permanent vacation. All he wants is to get back to that girl in Seattle, but there are men following him, which doesn’t make much sense. Jane Abrams just got to Alaska and she’s got big problems. Her son has gone missing and the police won’t help. She wants Keeler’s assistance but he’s got other plans.

Shawnee chief Tecumseh was a man destined for greatness - the son of a prominent war leader, he was supposedly born under a lucky shooting star. Charismatic, intelligent, handsome, he was both a fierce warrior and a savvy politician. In the first biography of Tecumseh in more than 20 years, Peter Cozzens thoroughly revises our understanding of this great leader and his movement, arguing that his overlooked younger brother Tenskwatwa, the 'Shawnee Prophet', was a crucial partner in Tecumseh's success.

Lying has been with us from time immemorial. Yet today is different - and in many respects worse. All over the world, people are circulating damaging lies, and these falsehoods are amplified as never before through powerful social media platforms that reach billions. Liars are saying that COVID-19 is a hoax. They are claiming that vaccines cause autism. In the face of those problems, the renowned legal scholar Cass Sunstein probes the fundamental question of how we can deter lies while also protecting freedom of speech.

Trauma Surgeon Carrie Walker is taken aback when her estranged uncle, a senior Russian naval Officer, makes contact, claiming to have explosive information which he is offering to share with the West. She travels undercover to Moscow to meet him, but when the operation goes catastrophically wrong, she finds herself stranded and on the run. The one person she can trust is her former fiance, Rake Ozenna.

There is no turning back.... Detective John Morrigan arrives at what appears to be a routine homicide in a botched armed robbery. However, as a key witness to the murder is herself violently killed less than 24 hours later, Morrigan discovers that someone very dangerous is responsible. As the Detective follows the trail, it leads him into a tangled web of duplicity stretching from the heart of his police department all the way to the upper echelons of political power.

When Van Shaw receives a distress call from his fellow Afghan War veteran, Leo Pak, he has to leave the urban hazards of Seattle to head far south to a town called Broken Ridge, deep in the wild heart of rural Oregon. Leo faces charges of murdering a local gun dealer, and while Van doesn't doubt his friend's innocence, he knows he faces conviction. As Van starts his own covert investigations, the small town is suddenly awash with Army Ranger veterans, converging for a raucous annual rally.

Amber is happy. She loves her husband, David, and their dog, Sadie; she even loves her job as a junior editor on a local newspaper. But when the body of a young woman is found in a stretch of river near her home, Amber’s world begins to implode. The headaches that she has been struggling with seem to intensify, and Amber begins to doubt her husband. Why doesn’t he want to probe deeper into the story, and why does she seem to have such a shaky hold on her own thoughts and memories?

The USA has been ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South. While the South has been devastated by disease, the North has emerged victorious but terrified of reprisals. Both territories remain at the mercy of the vicious Northern dictator, Renard. Two survivors, Dyce and Vida, journeyed deep into the Southern terrains in search of a cure for Renard's chemical warfare. Now they find themselves scouring the Northern territories on a new and far deadlier pursuit.

Special agent Rake Ozenna watches as a fleet of Russian military helicopters head straight for his home. His tiny Alaskan island, with a population of just 80. What he doesn't know yet is why. Russia is playing a dangerous political game, reclaiming Rake's island as their own, even if it antagonises the US. Caught in the crosshairs of sabre-rattling big powers, Rake is determined to save his people and his island, even if it costs him his life.

In Western Union: The year is 1861, and the nation is at war. The Western Union Telegraph Company intends to connect East with West as never before but is beset by enemies. Wires are cut and telegraph poles burned, and then matters take a darker turn when a repair crew is massacred. The question is, who might be responsible? Could it be embittered Indians, belligerent Confederates, or even the Pony Express, which will surely go out of business as soon as the transcontinental telegraph is completed?

'Dry Gulch Outlaws': Link Bonner has already tracked and killed two of the Carp brothers who raped and murdered his young Pawnee bride. Then when he gets word of the whereabouts of the others, he leaves Emma Fitzgerald behind him in Fort Union and heads for Yuma. But Emma has tracked him down and now intends to march straight into his heart. 'The Dark Trail to Nowhere': Lucas Santana is a freelance range detective working for both the US Marshals Service and the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the 1880s.

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris' ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap in to the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik - a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts.

Paul Wood was just a tourist in battle-scarred Sarajevo when an unexpected encounter changed his life. Now he is a desperate woman¿s only hope of escape, but to get her to safety he must find a way through the minefield of warlords, criminals, and peacekeepers that is postwar Bosnia. Unable to leave the country legally, he agrees to do a job for a shadowy group of human traffickers, in exchange for safe passage.

What is it like to broadcast the fateful words "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," then jump into the unknown? The members of one of the world's most unusual brotherhoods provide the answers in this incredible book. Formed during the Second World War to celebrate the survival of pilots who had been forced to bail out over water, the Goldfish Club has taken on new members ever since. They share one pivotal moment, but their experiences beyond this couldn't be more different.

Ernst Grip, of the Swedish security police, has no idea why he's been dispatched to a remote American military base in the Indian Ocean. Met by FBI agent Shauna Friedman, he learns that the US wants him to determine whether a prisoner they're holding is a Swedish citizen. The detainee is a suspect in an Islamist-inspired terror attack in the US.