Showing results by narrator "Robin Laing" in All Categories

In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books - both lost classics and new discoveries - introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

No one thinks very much at all about carwash employee Davey Burnet, until one day he takes the wrong customer's motor for a ride. One kidnapping later, he and the carwash are officially part of Glasgow's criminal underworld, working for a psychopath who enjoys playing games like "Keep Yer Kneecaps" with any poor bastard who crosses him. Can Davey escape from the gang's clutches with his kneecaps and life intact? Perhaps this polis Ally McCoist who keeps nosing around the carwash could help. That's if she doesn't get herself killed first.

On a remote Highland mountain, the body of Elaine Buxton is burning. All that will be left to identify the respected lawyer are her teeth and a fragment of clothing. In the concealed back room of a house in Edinburgh, the real Elaine Buxton screams into the darkness…. Detective Inspector Luc Callanach has barely set foot in his new office when Elaine’s missing persons case is escalated to a murder investigation. Having left behind a promising career at Interpol, he’s eager to prove himself to his new team.

1838, England: When eighteen-year-old Frances Dickinson impulsively marries Lieutenant John Geils, all her hopes for her future are quickly shattered as she finds there is much about her husband she did not know. A cruel and violent man, John keeps Frances in isolation on his family's estate, while spending her fortune and preying upon their maids. Frances yearns to break free from her marriage but the law is not on her side. Only when John's abuse escalates can she set in motion a daring plan to secure her freedom.

In the midst of a rock festival, a charity worker is sliced across the stomach. He dies minutes later. In a crowd of thousands, no one saw his attacker. The following week, the body of a primary school teacher is found in a Dumpster in an Edinburgh alley, strangled with her own woolen scarf. DI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach have no motive and no leads - until around the city, graffitied on buildings, words appear describing each victim.

Following the bombshell ending of Kill Your Darlings, Declan Walsh has a new job, a new office and a new remit—but when a City of London art gallery discovers the star of their latest exhibition dead, with only a signed, painted "kiss" on his neck to go on, Declan and his team must investigate a murder that involves brutal vengeance, a family linked to a painting stolen by the Nazis in WW2, and a long-forgotten promise.

It's a time of change for the Last Chance Saloon—recent promotions have changed the focus of the Unit, and when a Fleet Street Legend, Hunt Robinson, is kidnapped from Heathrow Airport and found close to death in the crypt of Fleet Street's St Bride's Church, DI Declan Walsh and his colleagues need to put the past behind them, and unite to take on the case.

When a decades-old body is discovered in an underground cell in Temple Church, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon are sent to discover more on it - in particular, why a twenty-year old body has been dug up from their place of rest, and deliberately placed in a room known only as the 'penitential cell', once used by the Knights Templar to punish the unholy.

The year is 1905. London is a playground for the rich and a death trap for the poor. When Sofia Logan’s husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her penniless with two young children, she knows she will do anything to keep them from the workhouse. But can she bring herself to murder? Even if she has done it before....

Drugged and kidnapped from his Edinburgh home, the realisation soon dawns that he’s been locked inside a shipping container - but what Bart doesn’t know is that he’s now heading for France, where his unspeakable fate is already sealed.... DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are working on separate cases that soon collide as it becomes clear that the men and women being shipped to France are being traded for women trafficked into Scotland. With so many lives at stake, it seems an impossible task - but there’s no option of failure when Bart and so many others will soon be dead...

Edinburgh is gripped by the greatest terror it has ever known. A lone bomber is targeting victims across the city, and no one is safe. DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach face death every day - and not just the deaths of the people being taken hostage by the killer. When it becomes clear that with every tip-off they are walking into a trap designed to kill them, too, Ava and Luc know that finding the truth could mean paying the ultimate price.

AD 381. Five years have gone by since a Roman governor ordered the deaths of a Gothic king and his attendants at a feast in their honor. This disastrous act led to warfare in the Roman Empire and the death of the Emperor Valens. The Empire is now at peace, but the powerful brother of the murdered king has sworn revenge on the regicides, and will not rest until they are hunted down. For the eight legionaries who carried out the killings, the bloodshed is only just beginning.

Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon is best-known for A Scots Quair, a trilogy of novels comprising Sunset Song, Cloud Howe and Grey Granite that are considered to be among the most important works of the 20th century Scottish Renaissance. Featured here are the BBC Radio dramatisations of the first two novels, as well as a special documentary feature exploring the landscape and legacy of Sunset Song.

Thomas Tallis, inspector of provenance, has just arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, to authenticate The Goldenacre, a masterpiece by iconic Scottish architect and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Still dealing with a miserable divorce and the fallout from a disastrous job in London, Tallis is eager to sign off on the painting and leave. It should be simple, as the painting has been owned by one noble family since the ’20s. But then a horrifying parcel arrives on Tallis’ desk, and the threatening message is clear: Someone doesn’t want him inspecting the painting.

Suzy Medley is having a bad day...when a shabby terrier turns up at her door. Just like Suzy, Scout has been abandoned, although only Suzy has been left with a financial mess and a business in tatters thanks to her ex. Suzy takes Scout in, and her chaotic world changes in unexpected ways: strangers have never been more welcoming, and her teenage kids can’t wait to come home to visit. Then a chance encounter on a windy Hebridean beach makes things more complicated, because Suzy isn’t the only one who needs a friend.

Stephen Berry is about to jump off a bridge until a suicide prevention counsellor stops him. A week later, Stephen is dead. Found at the bottom of a cliff, DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner are drafted in to investigate whether he jumped or whether he was pushed.... As they dig deeper, more would-be suicides roll in: a woman found dead in a bath; a man violently electrocuted. But these are carefully curated deaths – nothing like the impulsive suicide attempts they’ve been made out to be.

In search of a new life, 16-year-old Adriana Clark’s family moves to the ancient ocean-battered Isle of Mull, far off the coast of Scotland. Then she goes missing. Faced with hostile locals and indifferent police, her desperate parents turn to private investigator Sadie Levesque. Sadie is the best at what she does. But when she finds Adriana’s body in a cliffside cave, a seaweed crown carefully arranged on her head, she knows she’s dealing with something she’s never encountered before.

When silence falls, who will hear their cries? The body of a young girl is found dumped on the roadside on the outskirts of Edinburgh. When pathologists examine the remains, they make a gruesome discovery: the outline of a doll carved into the victim’s skin. DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are struggling to find leads in the case until a doll made of skin is found nestled beside an abandoned baby. After another young woman is found butchered, Luc and Ava realise the babydoll killer is playing a horrifying game. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again.

Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go. Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth. Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.

There's no easy way to die.... Unknown to DI Luc Callanach and the newly promoted DCI Ava Turner, a serial killer has Edinburgh firmly in his grip. The killer is taking his victims in the coldest, most calculating way possible - engineering slow and painful deaths by poison, with his victims entirely unaware of the drugs flooding their bloodstream until it's too late.