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Audiobooks Narrated by Terry Wale
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October 1381. Brother Athelstan is summoned to the church of St Benet's in Queenhithe to investigate the murder of a priest. Parson Reynaud has been found stabbed to death inside his own locked church. Other disturbing discoveries include an empty coffin and a ransacked money chest. Who would commit murder inside a holy church? Who would spirit away a corpse the night before the funeral – and who would be brave enough to steal treasure belonging to the most feared gangleader in London? Athelstan's investigations will lure him into the dark and dangerous world of the gangmaster known as the Flesher, whose influence has a frighteningly long reach…
Summer 1381. The Great Revolt has been crushed. Brother Athelstan meanwhile is preparing for a pilgrimage to St Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury to give thanks for the wellbeing of his congregation after the violent rebellion. But preparations are disrupted when Athelstan is summoned to the scene of a brutal triple murder. One of the victims was the chief clerk of the Secret Chancery of John of Gaunt. Could this be an act of revenge by the Upright Men? At the same time Athelstan is receiving menacing messages from an assassin who calls himself Azrael, the Angel of Death. Could Athelstan's pilgrimage be leading him into a deadly trap?
June 1381. The rebel armies are massed outside London, determined to overturn both crown and church. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, has been summoned to the monastery at Blackfriars, tasked with solving the murder of his fellow priest, Brother Alberic. Athelstan would rather be protecting his parishioners at St Erconwald's. Instead, he finds himself investigating a royal murder whilst the rebel leaders plot the present king's destruction. What does the fate of the King's great-grandfather, Edward II, have to do with the murder of Brother Alberic more than 50 years later? When he finds his own life under threat, Athelstan discovers that exposing past secrets can lead to present danger.
May 1381. The Great Revolt draws ever nearer. The Upright Men openly roam the streets of London, waiting for the violence to begin. Their mysterious envoy, the Herald of Hell, appears at night, terrifying those who oppose them. But who is he? When his chancery clerk is found hanged in a notorious Southwark brothel, Brother Athelstan is summoned to investigate. In the dead man's possession was a manuscript containing a great secret which he had been striving to decipher. Can he crack the code before the Great Revolt begins?
February 1381. London lies frozen in the grip of one of the bitterest winters on record. The ever-rising taxes demanded by the Regent, John of Gaunt, are causing increasing resentment among the city's poor. When the seething unrest boils over into a bloody massacre at a splendid Southwark tavern, in which nine people, including Gaunt's tax collectors, their military escort and the prostitutes entertaining them, are brutally murdered, the furious Regent orders Brother Athelstan to get to the bottom of the matter.
February, 1381. A ruthless killer known as the Ignifer – Fire Bringer – is rampaging through London. He appears to be targeting all those involved in the recent trial and conviction of the beautiful Lady Isolda Beaumont, burned at the stake for the murder of her husband. As the late Sir Walter Beaumont was a close friend of the Regent, John of Gaunt orders Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan to investigate. In the dead man's possession was a copy of the mysterious 'Book of Fires', containing the secret formula of a devastating weapon. The manuscript has since disappeared, and Gaunt is desperate for it not to fall into the hands of the Upright Men, who are busy plotting the Great Revolt.
The body of a smartly-dressed businessman turns up in the yard of Eli Simpson's car workshop. But there's no ID in the pockets and Eli swears he's never seen the man before. Then a girlfriend turns up with a name, and claims the victim told her he was someone's 'right hand man'. But old fractures and scars suggest a more colourful past. For 'right hand man', DCI Bill Slider and his team read 'enforcer'. So who was Mr King? Who was he the muscle for? What did he have to do with the Davy Lane project, and the blackmailing of an MP? And, most crucially, what did he know that made someone decide to terminally muscle the muscle?
A young couple discover human remains buried in the garden of their new house: could this be the resting place of 14-year-old Amanda Knight, who disappeared from the same garden two decades before, and was never seen again? The problem comes almost as a relief to DCI Slider, still suffering from the fallout of his previous case. He is not popular with the Powers That Be, and his immediate boss, Detective Superintendent Porson, reckons that at least this little puzzle will keep Slider out of trouble. After all, this is the coldest of cold cases. Most of the suspects and principal players are now dead too, and all passion is long spent. Or is it?
1793. HMS Amazon is returning from an arduous duty in the Indian Ocean when she encounters a French frigate in the Atlantic. When Amazon left England nearly two years before the countries were not at war but any hopes that the peace still holds are shattered as the Frenchman unexpectedly opens fire- a bloody sea battle ensues resulting in both triumph and personal tragedy for Acting Lieutenant John Fury. A battered Amazon puts into Gibraltar for repairs and there Fury has his promotion confirmed by Vice Admiral Lord Hood, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet. But with promotion comes a transfer away from his home on the Amazon and a new challenge. He will be the fifth lieutenant on the 74-gun-man of war Fortitude. Tedious blockading duty on the French Fleet inToulon seems to be in prospect but then in a remarkable development Toulon and the enemy fleet are surrendered to Hood by French Monarchists. A series of unexpected events sees Fury temporarily transferred away from Fortitude, first to a brig, his first independent command, then to a gun ship and finally to defend a prominent fort ashore as the Republican armies, inspired by a young artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, establish a brutal siege of the port. It is soon clear that Britain and her allies are going to be hard pressed to hold onto their prize. But Fury has more to lose than most, in the maelstrom of the siege he has met and fallen in love with a pretty French girl, Sophie Gourrier. Somehow, as the defence crumbles, he must rescue his men and Sophie from the doomed city.
First published in 1956, The Ascent of Rum Doodle quickly became established as a mountaineering classic. As an outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, many thought it inspired by the 1953 conquest of Everest. But Bowman had drawn on the flavour and tone of earlier adventures, of Bill Tilman and his 1937 account of the Nandi Devi expedition. The book's central and unforgettable character, Binder, is one of the finest creations in comic literature.
