Showing results by narrator "Bill Wallis" in All Categories

Rome, 63 BC. In a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire, seven men are struggling for power. Cicero is consul, Caesar his ruthless young rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath, Clodius an ambitious playboy. The stories of these real historical figures - their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions, their brilliance and their crimes - are all interleaved to form this epic novel.

When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state.

The year is 1931. The new and luxurious transatlantic liner Empress of Britain is on her eastward passage. Among the first-class passengers on board are two English confidence tricksters, making a discreet exit from a little awkwardness they have left behind them in the United States.

An anthology of over 50 classic poems, read by some of our finest actors. This collection contains a selection of the very best poems, from verses inspired by love to war poetry, nature poems and children's rhymes.

Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons, the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his photograph is all over the papers. His disgrace is public, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated… Maskell writes his own testament, in an act not unlike the restoration of one of his beloved pictures, in order for the process of verification and attribution to begin.

During his time as an inspector with the Paris Sûreté, Monsieur Pamplemousse had been 'in at the death' on more than one occasion, but even he had to admit that the phrase took on an entirely new meaning when he was present at the spectacular ending to Cuisine de Chavignol, France's premier television cookery programme.

Horace Rumpole - cigar-smoking, claret-drinking, Wordsworth-spouting defender of some unlikely clients - often speaks of the great murder trial which revealed his talents as an advocate and made his reputation down at the Bailey when he was still a young man. Now, for the first time, the sensational story of the Penge Bungalow Murders case is told in full: how, shortly after the war, Rumpole took on the seemingly impossible task of defending young Simon Jerold.

Maggie Perowne is head of Old Masters at Klinsky's auction house in London. Ben Glazier is an art expert. Ben, not as young as he was, is inescapably in love with Maggie, but she has an unfortunate taste for such dubious men as the Hooray Henry in the wine department. Together Ben and Maggie form a crack team that blends integrity and professionalism with a keen eye for uncovering the mysterious circumstances surrounding priceless works of art.

Following the best-selling Summer of a Dormouse, Sir John Mortimer - playwright, novelist, octogenarian, and erstwhile QC - offers up more lessons in living and growing old disgracefully. What would we like to leave to our descendants? Not a third-rate painting or our PEPS, according to Sir John, but a love of Shakespeare, a taste for alcohol, the ability to defeat boredom, the importance of never locking the lavatory door, and so on.

Charlie and his friends are back in danger, and the balance of power between the Children of the Red King has never been more dangerous. In a dark laboratory deep within Bloor’s Academy, Manfred and Ezekiel are brewing up a very nasty kind of trouble for Charlie Bone...The fifth fantastic story in the Charlie Bone series, from acclaimed author Jenny Nimmo.

Rumpole isn't particularly fond of Christmas; he finds it has a horrible habit of dragging on as he and She Who Must Be Obeyed go through the usual rituals in Froxbury Mansions. After the exchange of presents (lavender water for her, a tie for him) they settle down to a supermarket turkey with all the trimmings, followed by a glass of port. The only excitement comes in deciding whether to stand for the national anthem after the Queen's Speech.

In 1920s Leicester, Lewis Eliot must escape the drudgery of a council clerk's office and his provincial lower class background to begin his decades-long rise to power. As the years pass, and Lewis progresses to successful London lawyer, to Cambridge don, to wartime service in Whitehall, to senior civil servant and finally retirement, he faces in his own life and the lives of those around him collapsing marriages, terrible illness, the politics of academia, Nazism, nuclear weapons, the price of power and the ever-present realities of war.

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs.

Just before dawn one late-summer morning, Captain Bruno Courrèges is roused from sleep by the wail of the town siren atop the Mairie, summoning the volunteer firemen of St Denis. Bruno, the only policeman in the small Périgord town, follows the fire engines towards the site of a large barn, now engulfed in flames, the surrounding fields ablaze. Everything points to arson. A Californian wine maker is planning to buy up half the valley to create a huge wine-producing operation.

Four classic tales of the undead, read by Bill Wallis, Anthony Head, John Telfer and Cornelius Garrett.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole whose court scenes are proverbial, and whose home is ruled by Mrs Rumpole, is back in these short stories by John Mortimer. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.

These four stories test Father Brown in many ways, creating headaches a plenty. However, Father Brown is nothing if not redoubtable and whilst Chesterton's stories are, in his own words, "very slight and improbable", his method is all his own. Bill Wallis captures perfectly the mood and tone of Father Brown in this collection.

An anthology of over 60 classic love poems, read by some of our finest actors. Love has always been the supreme inspiration for poets, whether romantic or platonic, reciprocated or unrequited. This collection contains a range of the very best love poems, including Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" - as well as several sonnets from the master himself, William Shakespeare.

Major Ernest Pettigrew (Ret’d) is not interested in the frivolity of the modern world. Since his wife Nancy’s death, he has tried to avoid the constant bother of nosy village women; his grasping, ambitious son; and the ever-spreading suburbanisation of the English countryside, preferring to lead a quiet life upholding the values that people have lived by for generations. But when his brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs Ali, the widowed village shopkeeper of Pakistani descent, the Major is drawn out of his regimented world.

Charlie Bone wakes one snowy morning to find every creature in the city has vanished. What strange forces have been unleashed - and does the portrait of the Red King have something to do with it? The sixth thrilling story in the Charlie Bone series, from acclaimed author Jenny Nimmo.