Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

Something appalling happened in the wood. When Gabriel Ash and his dog come to her aid, she thinks she's safe. But this is Norbold, where things aren't always as they seem. Detective Chief Inspector Gorman thinks this is his worst nightmare: a predatory paedophile who's prepared to kill rather than be taken. Constable Hazel Best thinks she's helping both the Somers family and her friend Ash, but her tendency to follow her heart rather than her orders is about to get her into trouble again.

At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life. When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begin to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is…. Someone who wants vengeance.

Poignant, deeply funny, and beautifully written, Serious Sweet is about two decent, damaged people trying to make moral choices in an immoral world, ready to sacrifice what's left of themselves for honesty and for a chance at tenderness. As Jon and Meg navigate the sweet and serious heart of London - passing through twenty-four hours that will change them both forever - they tell an unusual and moving love story.

Seven years after the death of Edward Hyde, a stylish gentleman shows up in foggy London claiming to be Dr. Henry Jekyll. Only Mr. Utterson, Jekyll’s faithful lawyer and confidant, knows that he must be an impostor - because Jekyll was Hyde. But as the man goes about charming Jekyll’s friends and reclaiming the estate, and as the bodies of potential challengers start piling up, Utterson is left fearing for his life, and questioning his own sanity.

When an Olympic medalist is the subject of an attempted assassination, former SAS trooper Jeff Bradley knows his past is once again casting a shadow over his new life. A note left by the assassin confirms his suspicions: Bradley made an enemy back in Kosovo, and the man is out for revenge. But Jeff knows the killer is not working alone: higher up the ranks sits Avni Leka, a terrorist warlord who will stop at nothing to achieve his bloody goal.

When Mac and Marie marry and find a home of their own, Mac takes a snap of themselves outside their newbuild bungalow, the garden bare and the paint on the front door still wet. It becomes a tradition, this snap, and slowly the photographs build into an album of a fifty-year partnership. Every year they take a photo and though things change around them—the garden matures, the fashions change, they grow older—the one constant is their love. Every year, come rain, come shine, from the Seventies through the decades, every photo tells the story of their love.

When little Julie goes missing in summer 1986, David and Samuel share the terrible secret of her disappearance. Thirty years later, David has become a famous author and Samuel his publisher. Both receive identical manuscript chapters telling the story of what really happened that tragic summer.

Premier League footballer Gabe Savage is on the way to one of the most important matches of his life when he gets a phone call from his wife. She has been kidnapped along with their young son. And the message from her captors is brutal: 'If your team wins, your family dies.' With the kickoff only hours away, there is only one person Gabe can turn to - his brother, Ray, a vicious London gangster. But a dark family secret means that he hasn't spoken to Ray for years. Can Ray help? And will he?

Former Special Forces soldier Jeff Bradley is meeting with the mafia in Bari, Italy, to discover the whereabouts of his nemesis - criminal overlord Avni Leka - when he receives a message from an old friend. Barry is on board a tourist bus that has been hijacked by terrorists near Istanbul. Strapped with explosives, it is racing across Turkey to the northern borders of Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Turkish president will not negotiate. The Turkish military will not allow the bus to cross the border. The hijackers will kill themselves and their hostages if they cannot escape.

On the island of Aegina, a body's been found on the beach. The Special Violent Crime Squad is brought in to investigate. As bodies begin to pile up, there's a growing number of suspects. Now the team must work to figure out the meaning of the mysterious letter "T" left at every scene, all while unravelling the other secrets that the Saturn House beach club is hiding—and fast.

Sure to capture the imagination of devotees of true crime and the occult, this anthology of 13 true crime stories includes the mysterious slaying of Charles Walton, who was found slashed and pierced to death in an area notorious for its associations with black magic; the murder of Eric Tombe, whose body was located because of a recurring dream in which his mother saw Eric down a well; the terrorizing of Hammersmith, London, in the early 19th century by the nocturnal appearance of a "ghost"; and much more.

Three years ago, after an undercover police operation went disastrously wrong, CID officer Joe Clayton lost his career and his family. Forced to adopt a new identity, he lives under the radar, taking whatever jobs he can find. Always looking over his shoulder, always hunted. Now living on the tiny south coast island of Terror's Reach, home to rival business tycoons Robert Felton and Valentin Nasenko, Joe works as a bodyguard to Nasenko's wife, Cassie, and her two children. But when a burning summer's day explodes into violence, and a murderous gang targets the ultra-exclusive community...

Phobia is a series of five DS Jason Smith cases he worked on before we met him in the first book, Smith. We get insights into what molded him into the detective sergeant we first get a glimpse of in Smith. Smith quickly realizes that police work isn't always cut and dry. Justice is not always black and white; there are many shades of gray in between.

Sir Alex Ferguson CBE, born 31st December 1941, is a former Scottish football player and was manager of Manchester United from 1986 to 2013. During his 26 years in charge of United, he won more trophies than any other manager in the history of football. Packed with nearly 80 entertaining and exclusive interviews from those who know Ferguson best - friends, colleagues, associates and those who worked with him at both Aberdeen and Manchester United share their unique insight into the innermost secrets of Ferguson’s fascinating life and hugely successful career.

Libya, 2011. Into this maelstrom of violence arrive a covert team of MI6 officers and their minders. They land by helicopter straight into the hands of the Libyan rebels in Benghazi and the very unwanted glare of the world press. Only ex-Royal Marine and close protection expert James Royce manages to extradite his intelligence chiefs from the mess.

Jack Witney served 25 years in prison although he shot no one and was released on appeal, only to be murdered in his Bristol flat a few years later. John Duddy died in Parkhurst after 15 years. But Harry Roberts, by his own admission the instigator of the crime and the most notorious, was released from prison after 48 years in 2015, making national front page news. What could possess an apparently rational and sane man, albeit a habitual criminal, to commit such a callous and ruthless act? How can an ordinary person understand what he did? Should he be forgiven?

As children, Gareth and Helen went ignored and utterly unsupervised in their isolated English farmhouse while their mother obsessively tended to her beloved, exquisite garden. When they were little, Gareth would occupy himself by trapping insects under glass and Helen would find ways to entertain herself - but the older they grew, the more sinister their lives became, with no attentive parent to shield them from the predators of the world. Decades later, Helen is in the same crumbling house, unhappily married and looking after their bedridden mother, and Gareth finally returns home.

Josh is a sweet, well-meaning university student with a big heart. After he impulsively steals two research mice from a campus laboratory, he hides them in the basement of Harewood Hall, a venerable building in the retirement village where he works. The mice are happy, Josh is happy—until he discovers that his charges might be carrying a deadly disease. Enter a curious cat called Harley, a devilish dog called Bobby, the arrival of some mysterious packing boxes and a strange spike in the village's water bill.

2003. Kabul has become a frontier city, Afghanistan's fledgling democracy struggling with crime and corruption as NATO coalition troops, gangs and warlords jostle for control. When the body of a British serviceman is discovered in the city's infamous tank graveyard, the Kabul Police reach out for support in their investigation. Alasdair 'Mac' MacKenzie, formerly of the Metropolitan Police, is seconded to the team.