Showing results by narrator "Leighton Pugh" in All Categories

Former SAS trooper Jack Tate is running a black op for MI6 when the man who killed his parents comes out of hiding. On a quest for revenge from Monaco to Qatar and into the US, Tate must stop at nothing if he is to catch the world’s deadliest assassin. His worst nightmare is beginning. But the assassin is hunting, too. Members of his old unit, The Werewolves, might hold the key to a new weapon - one with the power to end civilisation as we know it. And this is his last chance for revenge....

The idea that nothing happens by chance in history, that nothing is quite what it seems to be at first sight, that everything is the result of the secret machinations of malign groups of people manipulating everything from behind the scenes - these notions are as old as history itself. But conspiracy theories are becoming more popular and more widespread in the 21st century. Nowhere have they become more obvious than in revisionist accounts of the history of the Third Reich.

Man is a delicate mechanism...he can easily be set off course. It is the late 18th century, and a young Sicilian nobleman, Vitellio Scarpia, finds himself penniless and in disgrace on the streets of Rome. After leaving his home to pursue a military career, his impulsive and undisciplined nature has led to his expulsion from Spanish royal guard, and he must now seek his fortune in Italy - a fortune inseparably bound up with the ruler of the Eternal City, the Pope.

After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the 20th century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as having gone 'to hell and back', the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities. Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety.

Kidnapped and drugged, Ash wakes up on a remote tropical island. His mum - a genetic scientist - has been imprisoned and infected with a deadly virus. He sets out to cross the jungle to find out and rescue his mother. Soon he realises he's quicker and sharper than before. But there's something else.... Why are the animals watching him, and how can he use the jungle to his advantage?

Imagine if The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were a real, practical book about the mysteries of the universe.... The Universe in Your Hand takes us on a wonder-filled journey to the surface of our dying sun, shrinks us to the size of an atom and puts us in the deathly grip of distant black holes. Along the way you might come to understand, really understand, the mind-bending science that underpins modern life, from quantum mechanics to Einstein's theory of general relativity.

In Blood on the Snow, Robert Service returns to the subject that has formed the backbone of his long and distinguished career: the Russian Revolution. For Service, the great unanswered question is how to reconcile the two vital narratives that underpin the extraordinary but troubled events of 1917. One puts the blame squarely on Tsar Nicholas II and on Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government that deposed him. The other is the view from the bottom, that of the workers and peasants who wanted democratic socialism, not the Bolshevik dictatorship imposed by Lenin and his successors.

An urban fairy tale from the acclaimed author of 99 Reasons Why. Arthur Braxton runs away from school. He hides out in an abandoned building, an old Edwardian bathhouse. He discovers a naked woman swimming in the pool. From this point on, nothing will ever be the same. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is an unflinching account of the pain and trauma of adolescence and of how first love can transform the most unhappy of lives into something miraculous.

The Nazi Hunters is the incredible, hitherto untold story of the most secret chapter in the SAS' history. Officially, the world's most elite special forces unit was dissolved at the end of the Second World War and not reactivated until the 1950s. Among their last actions was a disastrous commando raid into occupied France in 1944, which ended in the capture, torture and execution of 31 soldiers.

Horace 'Jim' Greasley was 20 years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters, and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war. After seven weeks training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicester, he found himself facing the might of the German army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in Northern France, with just 30 rounds of ammunition in his weapon pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. He was taken prisoner on 25th May 1940.

He had been to the limit. Then they sent him further. Gary - 'Gaz' - Baldwin is a watcher, not a killer. Operating with a special forces unit deep in Syria, he is to sit in a hide, observe a village, report back and leave. But the appalling atrocity he witnesses will change his life forever. Before long, he is living as a handyman on the Orkney islands, far from Syria, far from the army, not far enough from the memories that have all but destroyed him.

On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer's night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykjavik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person's life hangs in the balance. Dark, terrifying and complex, Blackout is an exceptional atmospheric thriller from one of Iceland's finest crime writers.

Éric Vuillard’s gripping novel The Order of the Day tells the story of the pivotal meetings which took between the European powers in the run up to World War Two. What emerges is a fascinating and incredibly moving account of failed diplomacy, broken relationships and the catastrophic momentum which led to conflict.

In 2008, the universe of Western finance outgrew planet Earth. When Wall Street imploded, a death embrace between insolvent banks and bankrupt states consumed Europe. Half a dozen national economies imploded, and several more came close. But the storm is far from over.... From the aftermath of the Second World War to the present, Varoufakis recounts how the eurozone emerged not as a route to shared prosperity but as a pyramid scheme of debt.

An eye-opening, thought-provoking and mind-blowing account from a genuine prison governor of what it's really like behind bars. The Secret Prison Governor has spent decades surrounded by every type of prisoner known to man, from petty thieves and common drug dealers to crime bosses and dangerous serial killers. Since starting as a rookie, he has experienced the reality of the UK's harsh prison system and the hard challenge of ruling those within it. In his own words, the Secret Prison Governor spares no detail of prison life.

Berlin tells the story of the city as seen through the eyes not of its rulers, but of those who walked its streets. In this magisterial biography of a city and its inhabitants, best-selling historian Sinclair McKay sheds new light on well-known characters—from idealistic scientist Albert Einstein to Nazi architect Albert Speer—and draws on never-before-seen first-person accounts to introduce us to people of all walks of Berlin life.

The Yorkshire Ripper's reign of terror is well known, but many remain unaware of the full truth behind the brutal attacks that shocked the nation many years ago. Countless crucial details of murder, manipulation and miscarriages of justice have been hidden from the public and the true extent of the Ripper's crimes still remains hidden to this day. This book exposes the twist in the tale of the most notorious British serial killer of the last hundred years.

It is 1971, the height of the Cold War and anti-American feeling among Icelanders is running high. When a teenager is found dead after a drunken night out, her clothes torn and face bruised, anger is directed towards the military personnel at the NATO air base at Keflavik who outnumber the local population. British Agent Bill Conran, invited by the Americans to uncover a Russian spy ring, comes to realise that this is no routine assignment. Unsure who can be trusted and targeted by an unknown assassin, he discovers that Iceland, for all its cold beauty, has never been hotter.

1939. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, Alfred Kendall is tasked with carrying out a minor mission for the British Intelligence Service. Travelling to Prague, he takes his troubled young son, Hugh, as cover. When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Alfred is given an ultimatum by the Czech Resistance. They will arrange for him to return to England, but only if he leaves his son Hugh behind as collateral. Hugh is soon taken under the wing of a Nazi colonel - Helmuth Scholl. But even though Scholl treats Hugh well, his son Heinz is suspicious of this foreigner.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's six novels: 1984; Animal Farm; Burmese Days; Coming Up For Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; and A Clergyman's Daughter.