Showing results by narrator "Gareth Armstrong" in All Categories

It is the 32nd millennium, and the Imperium is at peace. The Traitor Legions of Chaos are but a distant memory, and the many alien races that have long plagued mankind are held in check by the Space Marines. When a mission to exterminate one such xenos breed on the world of Ardamantua draws in more of their forces, the Imperial Fists abandon the walls of Terra for the first time in more than a thousand years.

For fans of C J Sansom and S J Parris, Holy Spy features the Queen's Intelligencer John Shakespeare in the latest of Rory Clements' acclaimed and best-selling series of Tudor spy thrillers. Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award, "does for Elizabeth's reign what C.J. Sansom does for Henry VIII's" ( Sunday Times). In London's smoky taverns, a conspiracy is brewing: a group of wealthy, young Catholic dissidents plot to assassinate Elizabeth and free Mary Queen of Scots.

On the doorstep of Holy Terra, the shadow of treachery still lurks. Upon a comet-shrine dedicated to the glory of Unity, a group of heretic Word Bearers prepare to return to the Solar System after being abandoned by their brethren - only the forces commanded by Sigismund, First Captain of the Imperial Fists, stand between the traitors and their goal. But will the legendary Templar's skill at arms be enough to prevail over this new enemy, or will the doubt in his heart prove ultimately to be his undoing?

The moles of Duncton Wood live in the shadow of Mandrake, a cruel tyrant corrupted by absolute power. A solitary young mole, Bracken, is thrown into leading the fight to free Duncton Wood. Only by putting his trust in the ancient Stone, forgotten symbol of a great spiritual past, can he find the strength to challenge Mandrake's darkness.

Chief Inspector Banks is back - in an original tale that makes up part of a new crime collection of seven short stories by Peter Robinson, never published in the UK before. With settings ranging from the Pacific Northwest in the Sixties to the Yorkshire of the Second World War and present-day Toronto to Eastvale at Christmas, these stories feature hippies, policemen and models, little girls dancing ballet, PIs and soldiers.

Despite the Imperium's best attempts to forestall the ork plague that is wreaking havoc in human space, an ork attack moon now hangs over Terra. As its malevolent presence gazes down at the Imperial Palace, terrified citizens run riot in the streets. In a last-ditch attempt to destroy the attack moon, a proletarian crusade is launched. Thousands of ships large and small head to the moon carrying billions of citizens, all eager to take the fight to the enemy.

Across the length and breadth of the galaxy, humankind celebrates its salvation and relishes the prospect of a return to peace. But the war against the orks has driven the political bedrock of the Imperium, exposing its rotten core. One man, one powerful man, decides he has the solution and launches a campaign of destruction so terrible that thousands of years later his actions will still be viewed with horror.

A new translation, by David Bellos, of this chilling novel, set on the Belgian border. "She wasn't an ordinary supplicant. She didn't lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers. 'If you don't agree to look at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful legal error..." Maigret is asked to the windswept, rainy border town of Givet by a young woman desperate to clear her family of murder.

Dense fog masks foul play in the streets of London, as Ann Granger brings us her seventh Victorian mystery featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross and his wife, Lizzie. It is March 1870. London is in the grip of fog and ice. But Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross has more than the weather to worry about when the body of a young woman is found in a dustbin at the back of a Piccadilly restaurant.

A new translation of Georges Simenon's devastating novel set on the French Riviera. It had a smell of holidays. The previous evening, in Cannes harbour, with the setting sun, had also had the smell of holidays, especially the Ardena, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with gorgeous figures. Dazzled at first by the glamour of sunny Antibes, Maigret soon finds himself immersed in the less salubrious side of the Riviera, as he retraces the final steps of a local eccentric.

Maigret stumbles upon a series of murders in Fontenay-le-Comte while visiting an old school friend. On his way home from a conference, Maigret stops to visit an old school friend in Fontenay-le-Comte. A man in the same train car introduces himself and asks if Maigret has come to help solve the murder case. In fact, the man's brother-in-law had been murdered four days earlier, followed by the murder of a local widow in the same way, a blow to the head with a pipe.

He needed to get out of his office, soak up the atmosphere and discover different worlds with each new investigation. He needed the cafés and bars where he so often ended up waiting, at the counter, drinking a beer or a calvados depending on the circumstances. He needed to do battle patiently in his office with a suspect who refused to talk and sometimes, after hours and hours, he'd obtain a dramatic confession. In Simenon's final novel featuring Inspector Maigret, the famous detective reaches a pivotal moment in his career.

From Rory Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award, comes The Queen's Man, the sixth in his acclaimed bestselling John Shakespeare Elizabethan mystery series. England is a Judas nest of conspiracyIt is 1582, and the conflict between Protestant and Catholic threatens to tear the country in two. While Queen Elizabeth I holds the reins of power, there are those whose loyalty lies with her imprisoned cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.

The Imperium has been brought to the edge of extinction by an ork invasion of unprecedented scale and depth. Piecemeal strikes against the invaders prove ineffective - for every ork fleet destroyed, five more appear. The only solution is to find and kill the orks' warlord - the Great Beast. Surely if its leader is killed, the greenskins' empire will fall apart in agony of infighting and confusion.

This is the story of John Stone, financier and armaments manufacturer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents. A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone's Fall is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home.

As ork ships lay waste to world after world, heading inexorably towards Terra, Imperial citizens despair. The High Lords become desperate to prove that victory is possible, no matter the cost. A massive navy fleet is assembled - their mission to make a definitive strike against the orks at Port Sanctus, an area of enemy-held space. But when the Imperial armada arrives, they find themselves outclassed and outmanoeuvred. Can human courage and faith possibly prevail against such terrible odds?

The Mortal Realms come to life in this audio drama collection. Some of your favourite authors bring you tales of war and eternal struggle for control of the realms in full-cast recordings. The balance of power in the Mortal Realms is ever-shifting. Gods, men, monsters and all manner of magical beings vie for primacy in a whorl of violence and politics. Dive into the action and intrigue of Warhammer Age of Sigmar like never before with this collection of full-cast audio dramas written by Black Library stalwarts including David Annandale, Josh Reynolds, Guy Haley and more.

Jesuit priest John Gerard hid from English authorities for eight years before his eventual capture and torture in the Tower of London. Risking everything to preserve Catholicism in Tudor England, Gerard moved from house to house, converting many people and evading capture by mere seconds. Following a hair's-breadth escape from the Tower to the continent, he survived to tell his tale and pass on his experience to future missionaries and martyrs in The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, a fascinating tale of espionage, disguise, priest hunters, and brilliantly designed hideouts.

Maigret is called to the home of professional gambler Felix Nahour, who has been found shot dead by his chambermaid. Maigret is shocked to recognise a photo of the man's wife, who becomes the main suspect. All signs point to her guilt, but Maigret suspects there might be more to this complicated affair.

This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret on the Defensive.

The sixth Inspector Ben Ross mystery. On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he's seen nothing.