Showing results by narrator "David Monteath" in All Categories

William Watt wants answers about his family's murder. Peter Manuel has them. But Peter Manuel is a liar. William Watt is an ordinary businessman, a fool, a social climber. Peter Manuel is a famous liar, a rapist, a criminal. He claims he can get hold of the gun used to murder Watt's family. One December night in 1957, Watt meets Manuel in a Glasgow bar to find out what he knows.

Mrs. Gillespie is famous around the northwest of Sutherland for being the best charwoman ever. Of course, if anyone has any social pretensions one does not say charwoman, one talks about "my maid". Hamish Macbeth wins Mrs. Gillespie's services in a church raffle but spends most of the day trying to avoid her. She is a malicious gossip and she bangs around the furniture and clanks pots--he wonders how on earth she managed to get such a good reputation.

Ex-priest DI Farrell is called on to investigate a gruesome death in rural Scotland. All evidence points to suicide, except for one loose end: every light in the cottage was switched off. Why would he kill himself in the dark? The question sparks a murder investigation that leads to the mysterious Ivy House, home of ‘The Collective’, a sinister commune of artists who will do anything to keep their twisted secrets hidden. And when the remains of a young girl are uncovered on a barren stretch of coastline, Farrell realises that there is something rotten in this tight-knit community.

Tony Banks and his comrades of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment were highly trained, but nothing could prepare them for the intensity and ferocity of fighting to liberate the Falkland Islands. Plunged into a war of night attacks and vicious close-quarters combat, Banks and his fellow soldiers' fierce bravery and determination saw them through the bloodiest conflict British troops had faced in decades. Seventeen men died at Goose Green, a hard-fought battle the paras came close to losing.

Nobody loves an honest man, or that was what police sergeant Hamish Macbeth tried to tell newcomer Paul English. Paul attended church in Lochdubh. He told the minister, Mr. Wellington, that his sermons were boring. He told tweedy Mrs. Wellington that she was too fat. Angela Brody was told her detective stories were pap for the masses and it was time she wrote literature instead. He accused Hamish of having dyed his fiery red hair. He told Jessie Currie - who repeated all the last words of her twin sister - that she needed psychiatric help.

Sixteen-year-old Philippa Somerville has left Constantinople intact. Returning to England as wife in name only to Francis Crawford of Lymond, she wastes no time in seeking the truth about her new spouse, even as she finds herself navigating the paranoid court of Queen Mary. Lymond, meanwhile, arrives in Moscow to assist its young Tsar Ivan to create a fledgling Russian army. But when he is tasked to visit London as Ivan's envoy, his path is bound to cross that of the wife he has sworn to divorce.

DI Jack Knox's Edinburgh team are busy dealing with a series of violent rapes when a man is found murdered on a residential street. The detective splits the under-resourced squad and follows up the murder himself, quickly establishing that there is no shortage of individuals who would have wanted the man dead. The victim had secured private investments for NewTech, a video games company that fell foul of copyright law. A lot of serious people lost serious money. Whilst Knox treads on eggshells and traces the finances, the rest of the team focus on the rape.

James Machie was a man with a genius for violence, his criminal empire spreading beyond Glasgow into the UK and mainland Europe. Fortunately, James Machie is dead, assassinated in the back of a prison ambulance following his trial and conviction. But now, five years later, he is apparently back from the grave, set on avenging himself on those who brought him down. Top of his list is his previous associate, Frank MacDougall, who unbeknownst to D.C.I. Jim Daley, is living under protection on his lochside patch, the small Scottish town of Kinloch.

The brutal murder of 10-year-old Callum Bradley sent shockwaves across Scotland, but as the weeks have stretched on with no solid leads, the investigation has been scaled back. Sergeant Don Colyear, community police officer, is tasked with tying up a loose end: a 999 call which may have hinted at the boy's murder. However, the call was made three weeks before the crime took place. The caller turns out to be a resident at an Edinburgh care home, drifting in and out of lucidity due to dementia - enough to write off the potential lead as a dead end.

Striking during heavy rain and choosing only victims who abuse women, 'The Stabber' has police baffled. After the sixth man is found murdered, having been stabbed to death through his left eye, DCI Andy Gilchrist is at his wit's end. Struggling against his self-serving and autocratic boss, Gilchrist is left furious when he is taken off the case at a crucial point. Driven by his fear of failure, and desperate to redeem his career and his reputation, Gilchrist vows to catch The Stabber alone.

All Sergeant Hamish Macbeth ever wants is a quiet life in the tranquil surroundings of Lochdubh, his home village in the Scottish Highlands. Although the area he polices is vast, he's happiest when he's working alone, yet the police authorities insist he has an assistant. In the past, they have supplied a variety of problematic misfits, but they surpass themselves with their latest effort - an American named James Bland.

A dawn raid on the home of a suspected rapist leads to a chilling discovery, a disturbing collection hidden under floorboards. Narey is terrified at the potential scale of what they've found and of what brutalities it may signal. When the photographs are ruled inadmissible as evidence and the man walks free from court, Narey knows she's let down the victim she'd promised to protect and a monster is back on the streets.

It’s December 1968. Having cheated Sandy Hoynes out of a rowing race and navigation certificate when they were young, Dreich MacCallum makes an unexpected return to Kinloch. With the Girl Maggie up on the slip awaiting urgent repairs, Hoynes takes to his bed, the memory of it all too much. When first mate Hamish persuades his skipper to get up and put the fishing boat back into the water, there are unexpected consequences that put Hoynes’ liberty and reputation at risk. Has Dreich won the day again? But the spirits of the past have yet to have their say.

Lighthouses are striking totems of our relationship to the sea. For many, they encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose is much more utilitarian than that. Still today we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, a ring of 19 towers built between 1811-1905, so called because they were constructed on desolate rock formations in the middle of the sea, and made of granite to withstand the power of its waves.

In the present, an old fisherman is found dead by the shoreline and a stranger with a mission moves into a shabby Kinloch flat/ Meanwhile, D.C.I. Jim Daley is trying to help Brian Scott stay sober, and the good people of Kinloch are still mourning the death of one of their own. As past and present collide, Daley finds himself face to face with old friends and foes. Memories can only last as long as those who keep them, and ghosts will not be silenced.

When her 18-year-old twins leave for university, single mum Nadia’s life changes in ways she never expected: her Glasgow flat feels suddenly huge, laundry doesn’t take up half her week, and she no longer has to buy ‘the Big Milk’. After almost two decades of putting everyone else first, Nadia is finally taking care of herself. And with a budding romance with new boyfriend Jack, she’s never felt more alive. That is until her son, Alfie, drops out of university, and Nadia finds her empty nest is empty no more.

When the luxury cruiser, hastily renamed Great Britain, berths in Kinloch harbour, the pressure is on DCI Jim Daley. The UK Government are taking a high-powered group of businessmen and women on a tour of the British isles, golfing and seeing the sights, as part of a push for global trade. But when one of the crew goes missing, and an elderly local ornithologist disappears, will the pressure become too great?

Five walkers set out to climb Ben Lomond on a fine October day. Within hours the weather has taken a turn for the worst. The group find themselves lost on the mountain. Two of the climbers manage to make it back down and call for help. The following day a body is found. One of the female climbers has been strangled, and another man is missing without a trace. DCI Dani Bevan is called to the Loch Lomond town of Ardyle to lead the case.

Jim Brennan is flying high. Against all odds he is a big man at the university, tipped for the head job and an office at the top of the ivory tower. He has a beautiful, accomplished wife and two healthy children. Jim drives an Audi, and his dog is a pedigree bichon frise. Not bad for the son of a hardman who grew up in a room and kitchen. But it is not easy to escape the past. Certain people have been keeping an eye on Professor Jim Brennan. When is son is arrested on drugs charges and lands in prison after breaking bail conditions, Jim is approached by men he thought he had left behind.

It is the summer of 1880, and DI Sam McQueen has been called away from the grey, damp streets of Edinburgh to investigate a case on the oppressively hot Mediterranean island of Malta. The local police chief is distinctly unwelcoming toward the interloper—but has no choice in the matter since Admiral Collingwood’s wealthy widow insists that her husband’s fatal fall from the roof of their villa was no accident.