Results narrated by "David Timson" in All categories

Step into the bustling streets of Victorian London with Sketches by Boz: The Complete Collection, which includes Volume 1, 2, and 3 of Sketches by Boz, where Charles Dickens brings the city’s diverse characters, neighborhoods, and daily life to vivid, unforgettable life. From the grimy alleys to the grandest ballrooms, this collection of sketches captures the essence of the people and places Dickens encountered, offering a sharp yet affectionate portrait of a society in flux.

Ambrose Chitterwick is in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, away from his overbearing aunt, to enjoy some afternoon refreshments when he witnesses a murder. It looks like suicide but he saw something being put into the lady’s coffee cup. He is Scotland Yard’s chief witness but he also conducts an investigation of his own. Despite his diffidence and self-deprecation, his sleuthing is not to be sniffed at. There are plenty of twists and turns in this journey to enjoy, especially with master narrator David Timson in the driving seat.

When Arsène Lupin and two of his criminal associates try to rob the villa of Deputy Daubrecq, things do not go according to plan and Lupin’s two partners are arrested and sentenced to death, leaving him to try and save them from the guillotine. To achieve this, Lupin must not only evade Daubrecq but also outwit a ruthless blackmailer who holds incriminating evidence in a crystal stopper.

In the comfortable English Dorsetshire village of Anneypenny in the 1930s, fruit farmer Douglas Sewell–narrator of the story–sees his friend John die in agony. The death certificate states gastric ulcers but the post mortem’s revealing of poison punctures Anneypenny’s idyllic backdrop. Soon every friend and neighbour seems to harbour something suspicious. Douglas challenges his readers, or listeners, to answer the key questions before throwing out several scenarios and turning them upside-down in a tantalising path to the truth.

The Iberian Peninsula, 1809. French troops led by one of Napoleon's best generals are amassing on the border. Wellington's outnumbered force and his unreliable Spanish allies need to pick off the smaller French units if they are to stand their ground. For that they need information: accurate intelligence on numbers, arms, and whereabouts. That's where Captain Keane and his company of reformed scouting officers are invaluable tools--despite being unpopular with the regular soldiers.

Hawkwood’s in America for this gripping, action-packed follow up to the bestselling Ratcatcher – for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Conn Igulden and Patrick O’Brian DECEMBER, 1812 Britain is locked in a bitter war with America and Matthew Hawkwood, soldier turned spy, is stranded behind enemy...

In Monsieur Lecoq, two men are found dead at a bar in a seedy area of Paris, and a third man, wounded, stands in the doorway and dies shortly afterwards. To the Inspector of Police, the case seems straightforward – a pub brawl that ended in murder – but Lecoq is unconvinced and is permitted to investigate further with the help of an older officer, Father Absinthe. In the course of his investigations – which take an ever-tortuous direction – Lecoq is assisted by the ‘armchair’ detective Tabaret.

One evening, wealthy diamond merchant Rudolph Kesselbach is visited at the Palace Hotel by Arsène Lupin. The next day, Kesselbach is found dead from a gunshot wound, with Lupin’s card pinned to his shirt. The wanted Lupin is forced to use all his guile to outwit the gendarmerie and find the real murderer.

In a creative twist, a fatally ill man’s great humanitarian act is to seek out and kill someone deserving of death; but the horror of an innocent man being accused of the murder was not an outcome Mr Todhunter, or the friends who advised him, considered. His job is then to prove his own guilt. Dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse, the story is suspenseful, inventive and humorous, with a riveting attention to detail and a profound suggestion of the absurdity of trying to influence destiny.

The Uncommercial Traveller is the persona of Dickens for this collection of semi-autobiographical sketches. A kind of Victorian blogger, he is funny and affecting by turns as he recounts what he sees and wonders at its meaning. Whether laying bare ‘a wilderness of dirt, rags, and hunger’ or musing on the ‘moodiness’ of tom-cats; recounting Mr Indignation Cocker’s sherry bill or simply taking us by the hand as he goes about his ‘no-business’ in London and further afield, he brings the warmth, compassion and fleet-footed wit that infuse his novels.