Showing results by narrator "Robin Laing" in All Categories

Jake has left it late, and the only summer job he can find is on the remote Scottish island of Elsay. Still, that sounds fine–the work isn’t too hard, the pay’s all right, and the scenery is great. But he soon has second thoughts about staying. His boss, Fraser, is a bit of a rogue, while Fraser’s cute but snippy daughter, Alva, takes against him from the start. And the oddball characters in the local pub aren’t exactly welcoming.

Summer 1857. Angus MacPhee returns from a fortnight’s work as a servant at a house a few miles away. He seems to have lost his mind. His family are forced to keep him shackled to his bed. When he appears to have come to his senses he is allowed to go at large, but his erratic behaviour gives rise to suggestions that he should be confined in an asylum. Neither the family nor the local community are able to meet the required costs.

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.

Investigative journalist Shona Sandison is attending the wedding of her closest friend and former colleague, Vivienne. But the night before the wedding, Viv’s reclusive school friend, Dan, jumps from a roof to his death. Shona is the only witness to the suicide—and so the only person who saw the occult tattoos covering Dan’s body, and heard the unsettling, mystical phrases he was uttering.

When the body of a City banker is discovered with a soaking wet playing card pinned to his chest and a water pistol nearby, DCI Declan Walsh is thrust into a deadly game 20 years in the making. As more bodies appear, each staged with cards and water weapons, Walsh uncovers a chilling truth: 12 friends who've been playing an elaborate game since university are now being hunted for real.

After a fatal poisoning in Essence, the Michelin-Starred restaurant of celebrity TV chef Leroy Daniels, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Temple Inn 'Last Chance Saloon' Command Unit find themselves in the middle of a multi-sensory gastro war, following an investigation that takes them deep into the dark kitchens of London, and a group of friends-turned-enemies all vying to become the next breakout venue—no matter what it costs to get there.

As ecologists Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe show, rewilding is a new and progressive approach to conservation, blending radical scientific insights with practical innovations to revive ecological processes, benefiting people as well as nature. With its sense of hope and purpose, rewilding is breathing new life into the conservation movement and enabling a growing number of people to enjoy thrilling wildlife experiences previously accessible only in remote wilderness reserves.

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence...

When Dave Mansford, founding member of 80's band Alternator is electrocuted live on stage during a comeback concert, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon are brought in to investigate whether it was a simple accident, or vicious murder. However, as they investigate further they find the surviving members of Alternator in the middle of a multi-million-dollar rights sale, a band whose lead singer disappeared in 1998 and has never been declared dead, and whose biggest success, the 1987 album Secrets and Lies seems to be cursed.

In a post-COVID Britain, investigative reporter Shona Sandison is seeking meaning and the next big story; her reclusive contact inside the government has promised her something huge, but she has no idea what kind of danger she’s in. Meanwhile, her old journalist friend Hector Stricken has taken on a position in communications for a new state agency, where he stumbles across a sinister, top-secret project code-named Grendel. Finally, an aging former MI6 director now living in seclusion grieves for his murdered son and ponders revenge.

When a body is found beside the Roman Fort Gate on the London Wall, dressed as a Roman Soldier and with an antique Roman Gladius stabbed into their chest, it's tasked to DCI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon to investigate the murder, leading them into a rabbit hole of similarly themed attacks - as re-enactors perform real-life battles at various locations for a "History of London" celebration during the day, with some taking a darker and more brutal approach at night.

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.

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.

On the dark streets of Edinburgh, a killer is waiting. When a body is found, it is only the beginning. Soon there will be seven more. In the city’s hospital, renowned surgeon Beth Waterfall is grieving. Her beloved only daughter fell prey to a vicious stalker a year previously – and now he’s coming for her too. Edinburgh’s police are desperate. After one body comes another, and then another. The brutal deaths are all seemingly unconnected, yet DS Lively and forensic profiler Dr Connie Woolwine know they are dealing with a serial killer – they just need to prove it.

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.

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.

In the cutthroat world of biohacking, where the quest to reverse aging teeters on the edge of madness, the line between success and disaster is razor-thin. Stephen Kline, a powerful sponsor of the Rejuvenation Royale Tournament, is found dead in his cryotherapy chamber—a brutal murder that sends shockwaves through the elite competition. As DCI Declan Walsh and his team delve into the high-stakes world of biohacking, they uncover a labyrinth of cutting-edge science, where competitors push the boundaries of biology and technology in their quest to cheat time.

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.

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.

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.