Showing results by narrator "Sam Devereaux" in All Categories

After a reclusive Maori on the run from the police leaps onto the back of his spring buggy, retired coachman James Hardy discovers he has stumbled onto a murder scene. While tracking a gang of lumber thieves, police have found the body of a young housemaid beside a log. The local hermit is hunched over the corpse, clutching a knife with ties to the past, but did he do it? And why does he claim he took the knife for the major? When the inspector in charge of the case asks Hardy for assistance, in the mistaken belief that he is a retired Scotland Yard detective, he agrees.

Federico doesn’t mind being a political hostage in the Pope’s palace, especially now that he has a cat as a friend. But he must admit that a kitten walking into a wardrobe and returning full-grown a moment later is quite odd. Even stranger is Herbert, apparently an art collector from the future, who emerges from the wardrobe the next night. Herbert barters with Federico to get a sketch signed by the famous painter Raphael, but his plans take a dangerous turn when he hurries back to his era, desperate to save a dying girl.

Rumor has it; they are being moved to Warsaw. Heide, who is always informed, claims that all hell is loose over there. There is talk of a German pullback from the eastern frontline. Thousands of British paratroops have landed and Polish soldiers converge on from the woods. But the Polish army is already doomed. Not only by the Reichsführer Himmler in Berlin, but also by Marshal Stalin. The Polish nationalists vainly beg the Red Army for help. But it has already been decided that the Polish communists are to take over Poland.

Dave Pigeon and his trusty sidekick, Skipper, are minding their own business in the garden shed when they see Mean Cat behaving very strangely... And why is she multiplying? The arrival of some very cute kittens is disastrous news! More cats? Ugh. But then the kittens come under threat... Are Dave and Skipper coldhearted enough to leave them defenseless? Especially when one looks a teeny, tiny little bit like Dave?

In 19th century New Zealand, the Land Wars have finished, but life is hard. Cashiered from the British Army after years fighting in India and Crimea, Sergeant Frank Hardy awakes in an underground prison with no idea where he is or how he got there. As he searches his memory for clues, his partner and his fiancee search for him. The answer is buried in the past and he will have to to dig it up before he can be free.

Cunning Plans collects several of NYT best-selling author Warren Ellis' lectures on the nature of the haunted future and the secrets of deep history, given in recent years at events in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Berlin.

Rebel is a good dog, and he loves his simple, perfect life on the farm with his owner Tom – until one day the war comes too close… Now Tom is determined to join the rebellion to defeat the king's men. But Rebel knows war is dangerous, and he will stop at nothing to save the human he loves. Rebel must bring Tom home before it's too late.

Help! There are zombie animals in the garden! Dave and Skipper think this is the work of some dreaded green cookies. (Eat them at your peril.) But a cookie's a cookie, and Dave can't resist taking a peck. Now Skipper is in quite the flap! Is Dave about to turn into a zombie? Or are those animals actually just in fancy dress?

It seemed that everyone in the bleak little village of Thornwich had been honored with the most obscene poison pen letters imaginable. And they showed no signs of letting up. So off goes Chief Inspector Dover of Scotland Yard, his unfortunate young colleague MacGregor in tow, to track down the source. Not-so-comfortably ensconced in the miserable lodgings of the Jolly Sailor, Dover's easy confidence is quickly shaken when he suddenly has to deal with two suicides – one attempted, the other all-too-successful – black-market babies, and various bowel disorders.

The temperance movement has taken hold in New Zealand, and the country is locked in the depths of a depression as a new land war threatens. When Sergeant Hardy and his new wife find themselves in financial straits, Hardy takes on Dead Shot, a thoroughbred stallion from a town near the front. But the horse has been targeted by a brutal Australian gang trying to take over the racing world. Murder soon follows. When Hardy's wife disappears, apparently kidnapped by the gang, Hardy must track down the mysterious leader of the gang and take him out of commission.

If you're a cat and you've learnt Pigeonese . . . (HA HA HA! As if a cat would be smart enough to learn Pigeonese). This must mean if you are a cat and you are able to read this, you have taken a pigeon hostage so that you can trick them into translating the Pigeonese words into Meow. I demand you release the hostage pigeon now. My book contains TOP SECRET ideas that are NONE of a cat's business.

Sergeant Frank Hardy and his wife Mette travel to the southernmost point of New Zealand to chase gold thieves and to retrieve a manuscript for Mette to translate. But they have chosen to travel on an ill-fated voyage. Twenty miles from Bluff, on the south coast of the South Island of New Zealand, the SS Tararua hits a reef and sinks, with massive loss of life. This real event was the second-worst maritime disaster in New Zealand's history, in a country heavily reliant on shipping at that time. But the couple has more than a shipwreck to deal with.

At least one battalion of flame-throwers is swinging around like a pack of crazy wild boars. Long, flaming red tongues of fire are hissing from the towers, charring every living thing. From the GPU-prison stream shoals of red prisoners. A barrage of incredible dimensions is hammering down behind the Germans. It seems like the Russians have guessed that they are pondering an escape and want to stop it with an impenetrable wall of fire, spreading as far as the eye can see.

In Extreme, Emma Barrett and Paul Martin explore the challenges that people in extreme environments face, including pain, physical hardship, loneliness, and friction between individuals, and the approaches taken to overcome them. Using many fascinating examples and personal accounts, they argue that we can all benefit from the insights gained.

Bloody partisan fights rage in the Balkans. Grenades rain down over the streets. From the rooftops, a heavy machinegun fire strikes down on the hunting battalion. Moaning, the injured soldiers crawl for cover. Molotov cocktails explode with hollow roars, and the burning liquid splash up on humans and materiel. - Partisan, the major stutters terrified and jumps off the vehicle. Porta salutes him with an idiotic smile. - Reporting to the Major that they will probably make it hot for us!

Join Sergeant Frank Hardy and Mette Hardy in three more gripping mysteries set in late-19th-century New Zealand: Dead Shot, Lying Under Water, and Come to Grief.

Dave Pigeon and his best friend Skipper are taking in the sights of London. Whilst pecking around the gates of the Royal Palace, looking for high-brow snacks to feast on, they meet Prince Raju Pigeon, one of the Queen's personal birds from the Royal Lofts. Raju is tired of royal life and longs to see life beyond the palace gates. Dave suggests they swap places for a short while! Raju will get to see how normal pigeon lives and Dave will be pampered in the Royal Lofts. Of course, this all goes to Dave's head and as he laps up the royal treatment becoming more unbearable than ever.

Dave Pigeon is BACK! And so is his side-kick Skipper. But trouble is afoot. When their Human Lady leaves to go on a 'holiday' (whatever that is), Dave and Skipper are horrified to find that their food supply quickly runs dry. With delicious biscuits on their minds, they set off in search of a new owner—but is Reginald Grimster all he seems? Why is he so keen on feeding them? And why does he have so many books about cooking . . .?

If running extreme distances is as much about mental endurance as physical, how do you keep going when your internal monologue turns against you? That was the simple question Ira Rainey faced when the darkness of depression cast its long shadow over his life. It turned out the answer was far from simple.

When Sergeant Frank Hardy's father, James Hardy, arrives from England, he's accompanied by a woman he met on the voyage. In forced quarantine on Somes Island in Wellington Harbor, Frank is visited by a man claiming to be a detective from the Chinatown Squad in San Francisco, who warns Frank that his father is in deep trouble. The woman has enemies, and they are on the way to New Zealand to find her and kill her. If James Hardy gets in their way, he's a dead man.