Showing results by narrator "Leighton Pugh" in All Categories

When the leader of one of Denmark’s major political parties is seriously injured in a car crash a mere three weeks before an election, two of his deputies vie to succeed him. But only one can emerge victorious, and a vicious, dirty-tricks campaign—marked by the unearthing of past indiscretions, malignant arm-twisting, and forged documents—ensues. Everyone else is just a pawn in this high-stakes game of chess, in which even the reporters covering the Danish Parliament have their own agendas.

What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there actually such a thing as ‘luck’—some force that intervenes between desire and its consummation, that impedes or hastens it? To answer these questions, David Flusfeder sets out on a search for the definition of luck.

Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions. Benjamin Daniels is back. He may be older, wiser and more experienced, but his patients are no less outrageous. Further Confessions of a GP is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling Confessions of a GP. With more eyebrow-raising stories from the world of general practice, Dr Daniels will once again amuse, shock, and surprise.You'll never feel the same about going to the doctor again.…

In November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin's obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in Russia, he was persuaded, and in early 1944 and Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today's Ukraine.

The political upheaval of the mid-17th century has no parallel in English history. Other events have changed the occupancy and the powers of the throne, but the conflict of 1640-60 was more dramatic: the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, to be replaced by a republic and military rule. In this thoroughly enjoyable account, Blair Worden explores the events of this period and their origins.

Melting ice, a military arms race, the rush to exploit resources at any cost - the Arctic is now the stage on which our future will be decided. And as temperatures rise and the ice retreats, Vladimir Putin orders Russia's oil rigs to move north. But one early September morning in 2013, 30 men and women from 18 countries - the crew of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise - decide to draw a line in the ice and protest the drilling in the Arctic.

Whatever happened to Oskar and Eli? And what became of the beleaguered families in Handling the Undead? Find out in Let the Old Dreams Die. In other tales from this collection, a woman finds a dead body and decides to keep it for herself, a customs officer has a mysterious gift that enables her to see what others hide, and a man believes he knows how to deceive death. These are the stories of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s rich imagination. They are about love and death, and what we do when the two collide and the monsters emerge.

Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely forgotten today, these pogroms–ethnic riots–dominated headlines and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination.

Brimming with gluttony, booze and lust, Roger Micheldene is loose in America. Supposedly visiting Budweiser University to make deals for his publishing firm in England, Roger instead sets out to offend all he meets and to seduce every woman he encounters. But his American hosts seem made of sterner stuff. Who will be Roger's undoing? Irving Macher, the young author of an annoyingly brilliant first novel? Father Colgate, the priest who suggests that Roger's soul is in torment? Or will it be his married ex-lover Helene? One thing is certain - Roger is heading for a terrible fall.

In a moment of suspense that will affect many thousands of lives, a handful of people will converge on a barren stretch of Yemeni desert. Corrie Rankin is already a legend at MI6 when he is sent to take down a high-value player in the war against Al Qaeda. This is Jericho's War. The weapons it deploys and the brutal aims it pursues are state of the art. The fear it breeds and the raw bravery it demands are as timeless as the desert itself.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese in December 1941, Captain Freddie Spencer Chapman chose to take the fight to the enemy. Trekking deep behind enemy lines into the jungle, this veteran explorer turned special forces operative unleashed a one-man commando campaign of such destructive power and lethal ferocity that the Japanese deployed a Regiment of four thousand men in a desperate effort to hunt him down.

The Kalashnikov AK47. A weapon with a unique image. A symbol of freedom fighters and terrorists across the globe. Undercover officer Andy Knight has infiltrated an extremist group intent on bringing the rifle to Britain - something MI5 have been struggling for years to prevent. He befriends Zeinab, the young Muslim student from Yorkshire who is at the centre of the plot. All Zeinab needs to do is travel to the impoverished high-rise estates of Marseilles and bring one rifle home on a test run. Then many more will follow - and with them would come killing on an horrendous scale.

Welcome to Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. It's 1926. Sarah Grey has a new job - assistant to Harry Price, London's most infamous ghost hunter. Harry has devoted his life to exposing the truth behind England's 'false hauntings', and never has he left a case unsolved. They are invited to Borley Rectory - a house so haunted that objects fly through the air. But when night falls, they're forced to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the ghost of Borley Rectory may be real.

When an aircraft piloted by Ben's former army comrade Nick Chapman crashed off the Cayman Islands killing everyone on board, the official line was that Chapman committed suicide. But things don't add up, and soon unfolding events point to something far more sinister going on. Following the trail of clues from the rugged Welsh borders to the Caribbean, Ben quickly discovers that some kinds of knowledge will get you killed - fast.

You won't remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, before you took the plunge and bought it. But all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all.

Decades ago, a vast object called the Anomaly was discovered moving through space. Missions sent to explore it found that anyone entering the Anomaly was unable to die. It kept moving, across our solar system, until finally the Anomaly enveloped Earth. Thirty years later, on the West Coast of the US, Theo hears that his missing wife has been sighted—in London. He’s sick, and getting worse, so he sets off to find her.

It's 1782. The 13-year-old daughter of a Venetian merchant family is lured naked from her bath by a stray cat and finds herself in the arms of Casanova - the legendary seducer of women. Twenty-five years later Cecilia is in Albania, now a portrait painter of some renown. Enter a young man from England, a troubled poet, looking for adventure at any price - a man who begins his affair with Cecilia.

Skylarks are the heralds of our countryside. Their music is the quintessential sound of spring. The spirit of English pastoralism, they inspire poets, composers and farmers alike. History has seen us poeticise and musicise the bird, but also capture and eat them. We watch as they climb the sky, delight in their joyful singing, and yet, we harm them, too. The Soaring Life of the Lark explores the music and poetry; the breathtaking heights and struggle to survive of one of Britain's most iconic songbirds.

The pond. Nothing in the countryside is more humble or more valuable. It’s the moorhen’s reedy home, the frog’s ancient breeding place, the kill zone of the beautiful dragonfly. More than a hundred rare and threatened fauna and flora depend on it. Written in gorgeous prose, Still Water tells the seasonal story of the wild animals and plants that live in and around the pond, from the mayfly larvae in the mud to the patrolling bats in the night sky above.

The gum that comes from the wonderful bubblegum trees that grow in the Indian jungle has not been delivered for two months. Without this secret ingredient, there'll be no more Gopal's Best Pink Bubblegum, and even more importantly, no more Bubblegummies - the people who live in the trees and harvest the gum. It's not an easy mystery to solve - and soon the friends are involved in a bungee-jumping, tiger-trouncing, woodcutter-walloping, bubblegum-blowing adventure!