Showing results by narrator "Laurence Kennedy"

Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent - but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war.

The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada.

The Laws is the longest of Plato’s Dialogues and actually doesn’t feature Socrates at all - the principal figure taking the lead is the ‘Athenian Stranger’ who engages two older men in the discussion, Cleinias (from Crete) and Megillus (from Sparta). The Dialogue is set in Crete, and the three men embark on a pilgrimage from Knossus to the cave of Dicte, where, legend reports, Zeus was born. 

The remarkable range of Plato's Dialogues is vividly demonstrated by these three works. It opens with Phaedrus, a highly personal discussion between Socrates (David Rintoul) and the young, love-struck Phaedrus (Gunnar Cauthery). They go for a walk outside the walls of Athens and, under a plane tree by the banks of the Ilissus, talk about love - erotic and 'Platonic' love. Socrates endeavours to steer Phaedrus away from infatuation and show him that real love is based on concern for the beloved.

Commander Malcolm Stevenson, a rich middle-aged man, finds his lonely life turned upside down when he falls in love with a pretty dance hostess. His involvement with Mollie "Sixpence" Gordon will lead to the exposure of a conspiracy to sabotage the British General Election, but Stevenson’s dogged pursuit of the criminals will throw his life and the lives of those he cares about into grave danger.

Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger’s stunning account of five years spent crossing the Arabian Peninsula by foot and on camels, with nomadic Bedouin tribesmen as guides. Travelling between 1945 and 1950, the British explorer treks through Yemen, the Empty Quarter, Oman, and parts of the then Trucial States, crossing and re-crossing around 250,000 miles of this most inhospitable terrain. He was the first European ever to set eyes on the dunes and wadis of these deserts.

The sixth-century Roman Empire is a dangerous place, threatened on all frontiers by invaders. But soon the attacking armies of Vandals, Goths, and Persians grow to fear and respect the name of one man, Belisarius: horseman, archer, swordsman, and military commander of genius. As Belisarius triumphs in battles from the East to North Africa, his success causes him to become regarded with increasing jealousy and suspicion. In his palace in Constantinople, the Emperor Justinian, dominated by his wife Theodora, plots the great general’s downfall.

For a period of seven years, Wilfred Thesiger canoed through the marshes at the confluence of Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, living among the native Madan tribes and their islands made of reeds. Now extinct, their ancient way of life is speculated to have existed for 5,000 years, going back to the days of ancient Sumer, and possessed a unique culture found nowhere else in the Middle East. Thesiger documents the tribes' conflicts, traditions, cuisine, relationships, justice systems, and art, and reveals how they built their unique water-borne society 

Young cleric, Wulfgar, does not believe that his older brother is capable of treason. Yet Wystan stands accused of plotting to overthrow King Edward and place his cousin, Seiriol, on the throne. It is clear that Seiriol intends to lead an army to conquer Leicester, and he appears unstoppable. With the army gathering force, can Wulfgar unearth the evidence to exonerate his brother before he suffers a traitor's death...?

Ashes in the Wind interweaves the destinies of two families: the Anglo-Irish Burkes and the Catholic Irish Sullivans, beginning in 1919 with a shocking murder and the burning of the Burkes' ancestral castle in Kerry. Childhood friends John Burke and Tomas Sullivan will find themselves on opposite sides of an armed struggle that engulfs Ireland.

Only 60 years later will the triumphant and redemptive finale of this enthralling story be played out.

Victorian London is brought vividly to life in Ann Granger's fifth historical crime novel to feature Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie.... A hanged man would say anything to save his life. But what if his testimony is true? When Inspector Ben Ross is called to Newgate Prison by a man condemned to die by the hangman's noose, he isn't expecting to give any credence to the man's testimony. But the account of a murder he witnessed over 17 years ago is so utterly believeable that Ben can't help wondering if what he's heard is true.

Edward Venn-Thomas lives in the 20th century but has been mysteriously transported to the future, and the apparently idyllic society of New Create, where there is no hunger, no war, and no dissatisfaction. However Venn-Thomas is starting to find life among the New Cretans rather dull. He comes to realise that their perfect existence, inspired by the poets and magicians of their strange occult religion, lacks one fundamental thing: evil. So Venn-Thomas sees it as nothing less than his duty to introduce them to the darker side of life.

Reverse Your Diabetes provides all the information and support you need to take control of type 2 diabetes and potentially reverse it. Based on the latest research and proven results, this clear and effective programme outlines the key steps you need to take to turn around your health: watch what you eat, get more active, monitor your progress and commit to change.

England in 1647: King Charles is in prison, and Cromwell’s men are fighting the King’s men. These are dangerous times for everybody. The four Beverley children have no parents; their mother is dead and their father died while fighting for the King. Now Cromwell’s soldiers have come to burn the house - with the children in it.

When Mr Thomas Tapley, a respectable but down-at-heel gentleman, is found bludgeoned to death in his sitting room, his neighbour Inspector Benjamin Ross of Scotland Yard rushes to the scene. Little is known about the elusive man until his cousin, Mr Jonathan Tapley, QC, comes forward and exposes the truth of Thomas’s tragic past. As the list of suspects begins to mount, Ben can't help wondering how much of the truth is really being revealed....

The greatest discovery of the 20th century. Kept secret. Until now. Berlin, 2015 - a well-connected SS commander is found dead, having protected the last secret of the Nazi empire for 70 years. A discovery by Nazi scientists so potent it could change the balance of world power - forever. Led by misfit military historian Myles Munro, an international team begin to piece together the complex puzzle left by SS Captain Werner Stolz.

London, 1867. As Inspector Ben Ross of Scotland Yard walks homeward one Saturday night, the fog that swirls around him is like a living beast. After it has lifted a woman lies murdered in Green Park. Allegra Benedict was the beautiful Italian wife of an art dealer. As Ben begins his investigation, his wife Lizzie looks into Allegra's private life and uncovers more than one reason why someone might want her dead...

Athelfled, wife to the aging and sickly Lord of Mercia, is only too aware of the threat her brother, King Edward of Wessex, poses to her husband’s kingdom. The preservation of Mercia is in her hands. In an attempt to unite the kingdom behind her, she seizes on the prospect of rediscovering St. Oswald’s bones, rumoured to be buried in the hostile north, around Lincoln.

If somewhere is said to be 'beyond the black stump', it is in the deepest darkest wilds of the Australian outback. This is the sun-baked setting for Nevil Shute's novel of a romance that is tested by the differences between two young people's home lives. Stanton Laird is sent from his small town in America to work in a remote outpost in Western Australia.