Showing results by narrator "Robert Bathurst" in All Categories

It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines. But to what end?

When a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines one cold November day, Armand Gamache and the rest of the villagers are at first curious. Then wary. Through rain and sleet, the figure stands unmoving, staring ahead. From the moment its shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec, suspects the creature has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized.

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. From alien invasions to walking trees to winged beasts in the woods to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him. Including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village.

On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. But an attempt on the elderly man’s life sends Armand, his wife, Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d’Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded works of art. It sends them deep into the secrets Armand’s godfather has kept for decades.

When a peculiar letter arrives inviting Armand Gamache to an abandoned farmhouse, the former head of the Sûreté du Québec discovers that a complete stranger has named him one of the executors of her will. Still on suspension, and frankly curious, Gamache accepts and soon learns that the other two executors are Myrna Landers, the bookseller from Three Pines, and a young builder. None of them had ever met the elderly woman. The will is so odd and includes bequests that are so wildly unlikely that Gamache and the others suspect the woman must have been delusional. 

It’s Gamache’s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

On a cold November morning, a jogger runs through the woods in the peaceful Quebec village of Three Pines. On his run, he finds a dead man hanging from a tree. The dead man was a guest at the local Inn and Spa. He might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible. Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered? 

While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request. He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.

Set during World War Two, Hut 33 follows the adventures of a team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park as they work tirelessly to break German codes, matching wits with the fabled Enigma Machine. Unfortunately, they hate each other. Archie is a stroppy Geordie socialist revolutionary while Professor Charles Gardner is a toffee-nosed snob. In theory, the immensely stupid 3rd Lt. Joshua Featherstonhaugh-Marshall is in charge of the hut, but he is still struggling with even the most basic concepts....

New York Times number-one best-selling author Jeffrey Archer is a master of the short-story form, creating classic tales beloved by his fans. Now the award-winning writer presents 20 of his most popular and fêted short stories in The Short, the Long and the Tall. 

A collection of four ghostly tales inspired by M. R. James: Casting the Runes, Lost Hearts, The Treasure of Abbott-Thomas and A View from the Hill.

H. G. Wells wrote dozens of novels and short stories and is often called the 'father of science fiction'. Here we collect together the works of H. G. Wells as broadcast on BBC Radio. With full-cast dramatisations of novels including The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The War of the Worlds, Ann Veronica, The First Men in the Moon and The Wonderful Visit; plus readings of The Invisible Man, Love and Mr Lewisham and several short stories including The Inexperienced Ghost and In the Abyss. 

Keggie Carew grew up in the gravitational field of an unorthodox father who lived on his wits and dazzling charm. As his memory begins to fail, she embarks on a quest to unravel his story and soon finds herself in a far more consuming place than she had bargained for. Tom Carew was a maverick, a left-handed stutterer, a law unto himself. As a member of an elite SOE unit, he was parachuted behind enemy lines to raise guerrilla resistance in France, then Burma, in the Second World War.

Ever since that first primordial fireball exploded in the void countless aeons ago, people have been doing comic sketches on the radio. And this is no exception. These two mouth-watering series feature a whole host of tasty takeaway skits and shenanigans, from 'The Man At Parties No-One Wants To Talk To' and 'Britain's Stupidest Postman' to sauna novices, the perfect Proms punter and Batman in his dotage. Other highlights include regular characters Mr Makesalotofmistakes, who can't seem to get anything right, and smug yuppies Richard and Dulcie ('Rich and Dull') Perrier.

Nearly a decade after his last volume of short stories was published, Jeffrey Archer returns with his eagerly awaited, brand-new audiobook collection. Tell Tale gives listeners a fascinating, exciting, and sometimes poignant insight into the people he has met, the stories he has come across, and the countries he has visited during the past 10 years.

Mr Chipping is a quiet, unassuming teacher at Brookfield Grammar School. Wholly conventional, he never veers from his established routines. Until, that is, he meets Katherine, who charms him and his students and teaches Mr Chipping that education is about more than just the hours spent in the schoolroom. As his love for Katherine blooms, Mr Chipping develops a sense of humour and a broad view of his role as a teacher and a friend to his students, becoming the beloved 'Mr Chips' to generations of schoolboys.

A thrilling saga of criminal masterminds, espionage and adventure, Edward J. Mason's Dick Barton: Special Agent was a huge hit on the BBC Light Programme between 1946 and 1951. Together with his mates Jock Anderson and Snowy White, ex-Commando Dick faced dastardly villains and deadly peril—but always triumphed ('With one bound, Dick was free!') Half a century later, Edward J's son Lol paid affectionate tribute to the much-loved radio hero with this sparkling pastiche, featuring the joint escapades of father-and-son duo Dick and Richard Barton.

T. S. Eliot's best-selling collection of practical cat poems has been one of the most successful poetry collections in the world. For the first time in company history a companion volume will be published. Originally conceived by Eliot himself, Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs' poems are as witty, varied and exquisitely compiled as Eliot's cats.

The way we communicate has changed. Today many of our interactions are digital, but until recently writing letters was the norm. Drawing from over 100 miles of records held at the UK's official government archive, The National Archives at Kew, this collection of letters, postcards and telegrams will shine a spotlight on a range of significant historical moments and occurrences, recapturing a lost world in which correspondence was king.