Showing results by author "Ian Shimwell" in All Categories

Who is Old Tom? A sad and lonely fusspot? Or a forgotten figure whose bewildering deductive abilities hint at something more? Does he ever leave his armchair? Why is he only ever seen or heard by engaging local newspaper reporter Trench? And what surprising secret are the Mayflower Court Flats really hiding?

Little Titch and Gideon snuggle up for a bedtime story. And Minnie Millie tells her engines a story of a clockwork engine coming to life and of a clockmaker trying to make the Great Clock work in time before the Clockwork Village itself runs out of its tick and its tock.

King Henry VIII is inconsolable over the loss of his beloved queen, Jane Seymour. He banishes himself to the lower-levels of Whitehall Palace and refuses to see or speak to anyone. A deeply concerned Cromwell has a desperate plan: To send down the old court jester, the unstable Will Sommers, into the darkness, to somehow help. Meanwhile, Cromwell's enemies at court are gathering. Henry's grief regresses into a strange kind of manic madness. But can a fool really save the King?

Meet all the engines, characters big and small, in this collection of all six stories from The Engine Series. Puff along with engines Little Titch, Gideon, Toc Toc, Rust Bucket, and Sally Steamy, and don't forget Minnie Millie, the engine lookerafterer.

An unprecedented crime wave is remorselessly sweeping across the city of London. How have the criminals achieved so much recent remarkable success? Inspector Lestrade does not know which way to turn. Holmes and Watson follow a series of tantalizing clues leading them closer to the darkness....

What is so special about Space Pilot Harrys? True, he values his individuality above anything else. He is even weary of being one-bonded with his female. But, just before the dawn of the next millennium, Harrys' belief system is about to be blown wide apart. Because, across the immense vastness of Space, the Prime is waiting for him...

Say hello to Little Titch, the small engine with a big heart. Little Titch feels very small next to his good friend, the kind and very big engine, Gideon. But when Gideon forgets something important, it's up to the littlest of little engines to save the day....

Sally Steamy is an engine who doesn't seem to like Christmas at all. Sally wants to keep herself busy and believe Christmas is just another day. Can Little Titch and a magical Christmas adventure somehow change her mind?

Before... A young woman cycles precariously through a snowy wonderland, carrying the most precious gift of all... After... A troubled family encounter a stranger on the bleakest of Christmas Eves - a man who knows far more about them than he possibly could. And what exactly is this "gift of Christmas" he so reverently speaks of...?

Toc Toc is a clockwork engine who holds the secret to the tick and the tock. Little Titch, Gideon, and Minnie Millie come to the Clockwork Village with a cog, spindle, and wheel to fix the Great Clock. But what lies behind the towering clock face? And why, for a clockwork village, is there neither a tick nor a tock?

One murder. Three suspects. Each has their own very different story to tell of an ill-fated stay at the Saunderson family remote country residence, Three Sisters. But, will it be left to the final report of Inspector Mackenzie to shed any light on this most baffling of crimes?

Rust Bucket is an old engine who lives on a lost railway. Little Titch wakes up on an old, rusty railway track. He doesn't know where he is or how he even came to be there. Back home, Gideon and Minnie Millie desperately search for their friend. Can they ever find the lost little engine?

Requested by a frightened Lady Elisabeth Montague, Holmes and Watson travel all the way to the Montague home, situated on a remote desolate island, to investigate her somewhat fanciful fears. Are the family in mortal danger? And why have the Montagues, once the darlings of London society, now shut themselves away from civilization in this bleak, god-forsaken retreat?

Gideon is a big, kind engine with a huge crane arm. But when he meets an even bigger engine, Massive Mandy, she is always very rude to him. With the help of his friends, can Gideon somehow find the softer side of the bad-tempered engine?

With Holmes incapacitated, Watson reluctantly agrees to let the argumentative Inspector Lestrade accompany him on a Scottish fishing holiday. But soon after arriving at Ye Clootie's Claw Inn, Watson and Lestrade discover the fearsome Legend of Loch Logarth seems to be very much on the prowl. Is the Clootie creature terrorizing the village of Logarth? And will Watson and Lestrade ever agree on anything?

Solve the Egyptian equation, witness the Montague murders, fear the Legend of Loch Logarth, and close Holmes' final chapter. All four original Sherlock Holmes scripts of The Holmes and Watson Series, written and performed in the style of the classic Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce films. Audiobook is further enhanced with atmospheric music and sound effects.

A new recruit is assigned to be Hitler's personal bodyguard.

Minnie Millie is the station cleaner who likes to look after her engine friends. But her friends, Little Titch and Gideon, want to know just who is it who controls all the Mainland engines. To find out, they must go all the way to the Big City, where the biggest surprise of all is waiting for them....

In fog-enshrouded Victorian London, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson soon become entangled in a deadly web of intrigue and cryptic clues. Who is the silver-caned shadowy stranger? Is Euclid's College lecturer John Kindred really in danger? And what is the connection to the fabled and priceless emerald, the Egyptian Sepulchre?

At last, after 165 years, the sequel to The Man in the Iron Mask... 17th Century France, two years after D'Artagnan's death: Deep beneath the Palais de Versailles, Aramis is shocked and astonished by the directives of D'Artagnan's Legacy. To follow, he must betray his honour; his King and, perhaps most damning of all, his fellow Musketeers. The Sun King will be eclipsed by darkness once more... Or can the ageing Musketeers really reunite, for one last time - for the glory of France?