Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

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Len Deighton

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

Deep in Marxist Guerilla territory a hopeless war is being fought. 
 
The Berlin Wall is demolished. Marx is dead. Try telling that to Ramon and his desperate men hiding in the jungle cradling their AK 47s, dusting off the slabs of Semtex and dreaming of world revolution. 
 
MAMista takes us to the dusty, violent capital of Spanish Guiana in South America, and thence into the depths of the rain forest. There, four people become caught up in a struggle both political and personal, a struggle corrupted by ironies and deceits, and riddled with the accidents of war. They are four people who never should have found themselves bound together in a mission for revolution, which may be the sentence of death. 
 
Never has Deighton portrayed so accurately the terror and the tedium of war, or the shifting alliances and betrayals between people who have nothing to lose but their lives.

MAMista

Philip Palmer

A gritty thriller set behind the Iron Curtain in 1960s Hungary 
 
Budapest, 1963. Special Investigator Bertalan Lázár and his wife, spymaster Franciska Lázár, face formidable challenges as they try to navigate a path through the dangerous underworld of Cold War-era Hungary. Catching the criminals is difficult enough, but there are other more threatening battles raging in higher places. 
 
In these 16 episodes, Bertalan must investigate the murder of a former member of the secret police, fight a turf war as he tries to find a child killer, probe a seemingly straightforward case of GBH that leads him to a rogue cop and enter the uncharted territory of Budapest's underground drugs scene after a rock musician is found dead. 
 
Written by Philip Palmer, this gripping, atmospheric drama expertly conjures up the tense, paranoid world of Communist Hungary, where dissidence was dangerous, the truth was hard to find and pursuing justice could get you killed. Leo Bill stars as Bertalan and Clare Corbett as Franciska, with Andy Linden as Tibor Farkas and Joseph Ayre as József Szabados. 
 
The episodes in this collection are: 
 
 The Wolf 
The Old Days 
Behind the Wall 
Waiting by the River 
Heroes 
Gellert Hill 
Spider's Web 
Carnaby Street 
Gypsy Dancers 
Grandmother's Footsteps 
Mad Dog 
The Light of Dawn 
The Great Society 
Red Pen 
The Great Tree Gang 
The Magical Magyars 
 
Produced and directed by Toby Swift and Sasha Yevtushenko 
Sound Design by Caleb Knightley 
 
Cast 
Bertalan Lázár - Leo Bill 
Franciska Lázár - Clare Corbett 
Tibor Farkas - Andy Linden 
József Szabados - Joseph Ayre 
Gizella - Nicola Ferguson 
Bela Fekete - Sargon Yelda 
Mr Papp - Nick Underwood 
Kitchen Porter - Richard Pepple 
Police Officer/Csaba - Sam Rix 
Lilien Racz - Adie Allen 
Milton Szilard - Philip Fox 
Kristof Szep - Samuel James 
Mr Kiraly - Robert Blythe 
Waiter/Peterke - Tom Forrister 
Mrs Tolnay - Sanchia MacCormack 
Stenographer - Kerry Gooderson 
Dmitri Dragunov - Simon Scardifield 
Márk Mészáros - Michael Bertenshaw 
András Vásáry - David Hounslow 
Priest/Copper - Christopher Harper 
Gyuri Varg/Fabenyi/Police officer/Partygoer - Kenny Blyth 
Dorina Varga - Helen Clapp 
Ministry official/Police officer/Drug dealer/Partygoer - Chris Pavlo 
Hanna Krivosik - Franchi Webb 
Zsófia/Nurse 1 - Sarah Ovens 
PuŠomori Žiga - Debbie Korley 
Mrs Kovacs/Nurse 2/Receptionist - Susan Jameson 
Gyozo Novak - Carl Prekopp 
Florian Hevesi - Luke Nunn 
Sandor Boros - Stephen Greif 
Pathologist - Jane Whittenshaw 
Cop/Detective - Stefan Adegbola 
Mother - Emma Handy 
Kulcsar - Roger Ringrose 
Draskovic - Ewan Bailey 
Billiards player/Prison officer - Ian Dunnett Jnr 
Hadik - Hasan Dixon 
Richard Miklos/Károly Miklós/Laska - Shaun Mason 
Violinist/Márton Kozma/Police Officer/Priest - Simon Ludders 
Réka Kozma/Pathologist - Jane Slavin 
Archivist/Ioveanu - Tony Turner 
Orsolya - Ria Marshall 
Receptionist - David Sturzaker 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Keeping the Wolf Out

The complete BBC Radio 4 full-cast crime series

Mark Greaney

When the great bear growls . . . 
 
Russia is hurting. It's economy is tanking and its 'adventures' abroad have proved costly. President Volodin knows that his own survival depends on restoring Russian pride. 
 
. . . the world trembles 
 
When a series of explosions, assassinations and attacks rock the global order, only one man in the West recognizes the true cause of the chaos: American President Jack Ryan. 
 
With Russian troops massing on Europe's borders, President Ryan cannot use military might without escalating conflict and playing into Volodin's hands. Instead he turns to his covert intelligence agencies. 
 
They must uncover, infiltrate and neutralize each and every threat. But time is running out. And this war is about to go global . . .

Tom Clancy's Commander-in-Chief

INSPIRATION FOR THE THRILLING AMAZON PRIME SERIES JACK RYAN

Frederick Forsyth

An astonishing and beautiful tale of a frontier scout who saves a young Cheyenne girl from the prospect of rape and murder at the hands of his own army. The favour is returned when the scout is saved by the Cheyenne and given mercy, but when he falls in love with the girl he saved he knows that the tribe will never allow them to be together. They escape, but are forced to abandon their flight when they encounter an omen telling them that she is pledged to another. This frontier tale soon becomes a violent present day manhunt through the Wild West. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection The Veteran.

Whispering Wind (Storycuts)

Tom Morton

A name from the murkiest corners of Britain's secret war in Ireland: Serpentine. 
 
At first it's just gossip and fearful whispers. But then people begin to die and all hell breaks loose from Palestine to the remote Highlands of Scotland. 
 
Fresh from the toughest assignments in the mercenary world comes former SAS officer Murricane. Can he find Serpentine before it's too late and before the horrific secrets of the past threaten to cause chaos not just in Ireland but in the Middle East too? 
 
In a trail of mayhem that leads through Scotland, Gaza and Ireland, Murricane battles his own demons, as well as a monstrous former RUC officer, a disgraced policeman and a series of unreliable Land Rovers, until Serpentine plays his final, devastating game . . . 
 
Serpentine is an explosive, bitterly funny journey into the darkest heart of the Irish Troubles and the violence that lurks in Scotland's most scenic Highland communities.

Serpentine

A collection of five heart-stopping stories from the master thriller writer. 
 
A miracle in war-torn Siena that begins with the persecution of a young nun in the turbulent days of the sixteenth century and culminates in the bitter German retreat from Italy; a drug smuggling heist on an international flight where the Knock pit their wits against the smugglers; a brural urban murder, where a brilliant QC decides to defend the killers, resulting in a startling justice; an incandescent art scam at a famous London auction house, and a brilliantly plotted revenge that shatters the elegant world of the Old Masters - each story is a remarkable tour de force. 
 
And above all here is a brilliant novella, 'Whispering Wind', which begins with the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the battle of Little Big Horn. Then follows the rescue from rape and murder of a Cheyenne girl and a flight across the mountains and forests of the West, ending in a savage present-day manhunt in the wild lands of Montana.

The Veteran

Thriller Short Stories

Eric Ambler

Girija Krishnan, an Indian clerk, sees the opportunity of his lifetime when he stumbles on a lost cache of arms hidden in the Malayan jungle. If he can find a buyer for the weapons, he will be able to achieve his life-long dream of creating his own bus company. But the risks are as high as the rewards, as the arms draw ever more people into their dangerous orbit: an entrepreneurial trio of Chinese brothers, a sleazy British former soldier, and a naive American couple who find themselves horribly out of their depth. 
 
Following the arms as they travel from the jungle to Singapore to Indonesia, Ambler's classic thriller is a tour de force of psychological and political insight, and winner of the 1959 Gold Dagger award.

Passage of Arms

Clive Cussler

Graham Brown

As head of the US National Underwater and Maritime Agency's Special Assignment's Team, Kurt Austin is no stranger to danger - above or below the waves. Kurt's global assignments often bring him head to head with dastardly attempts to use the world's resources for evil, but he's never failed a mission yet.

A gripping, action-packed and suspense-filled tale that treks from the Galapagos Islands, to jungles of South America, to the icy birth-place of the Inca people. 
 
A missing aircraft 
Flying over the South Pacific, the most technologically advanced spacecraft ever built vanishes into thin air. Extremely valuable, both China and Russia would kill for the state-of-the-art machine. 
 
An unstable cargo 
Kurt Austin and the NUMA team are drawn into a stealthy race to locate the wreck. Only the United States know that waiting in its debris is a payload of exotic matter, stripped from the outermost reaches of the atmosphere. 
 
A devastating weapon 
Kept at absolute zero, the matter is so unstable that it could obliterate the face of the earth if allowed to thaw. In a race they can't lose, the NUMA team will risk everything to stop the world's most dazzling research from being the very thing that destroys it. Humanity's fate depends on them.

Nighthawk

NUMA Files #14

David Moore

Once upon a time, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories-fantastical yarns of wondrous creatures in faraway places-bewitched children across the world. But times change. Today, Kipling's writing tells us a different tale; of a love of Empire, and the troubling legacy of British colonialism. 
 
In Not So Stories, writers of colour from around the world reclaim these stories and remake them into something new. Something different. Something that belongs to us all. 
 
Including stories by Adiwijaya Iskandar, Joseph Elliott-Coleman, Raymond Gates, Stewart Hotston, Zina Hutton, Georgina Kamsika, Cassandra Khaw, Paul Krueger, Tauriq Moosa, Jeannette Ng, Ali Nouraei, Wayne Santos, Zedeck Siew and Achala Upendran, with illustrations by Woodrow Phoenix and a foreword by Nikesh Shukla.

Not So Stories

John le Carré

Harry Pendel is the charismatic proprietor of Pendel and Braithwaite Limitada of Panama, through whose doors everyone who is anyone in Central America passes; Andrew Osnard, mysterious and fleshly, is a spy. His secret mission is two-pronged: to keep a watchful eye on the political manoeuvrings leading up to the American handover of the Panama Canal on 31st December 1999; and to secure for himself the immense private fortune that has until now churlishly eluded him.

The Tailor of Panama

Andrey Kurkov

When the corpse of a distinguished general and presidential adviser is found, attached to an advertising balloon, lieutenant Viktor Slutsky is sent in to investigate. Meanwhile, KGB officer Nik Tsensky arrives in Kiev for a secret mission. 
 
A larger-than-life hitman, bombs under furniture, a hearse, a deaf-and-dumb blonde, a tortoise and a parrot all play a part as Kurkov evokes a world of secret militia not seen before in Western fiction.

The Case of the General's Thumb

Barry Windsor-Smith

35 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE MOST ANTICIPATED GRAPHIC NOVEL IN RECENT HISTORY 
 
*A GUARDIAN 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK* 
 
The year is 1964. 
 
Bailey doesn't realize he is about to fulfil his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office. Secretive, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, Bobby is the perfect candidate for a secret US government experiment, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey's only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone's control. As the monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, the story reaches a crescendo of moral reckoning. 
 
A 360-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters' narrative canvas is copious: part familial drama, part thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey that plays across two generations of American history. 
 
Monsters is rendered in Barry Windsor-Smith's impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling, with its sensitivity to gesture and composition, the most sophisticated of the artist's career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, of redemption and sacrifice, and devastating violence. Monsters is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.

Monsters

Elliot Ackerman

TWO MISFITS. 
ONE MISSION. 
ZERO BACK-UP. 
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? 
 
‘You know Slow Horses – now meet the Sheepdogs . . . glorious . . . hilarious' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'A rollicking military-adjacent adventure . . . replete with jet-setting paramilitary types, secret meetings at the highest level of government and firefights, with some rough sex and women in peril added for good measure' WASHINGTON POST 
 
Skwerl and Cheese are down on their luck after being screwed over by the US military. Skwerl used to work for the CIA’s elite paramilitary wing until he was unceremoniously fired after a raid went bad in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a legendary Afghan pilot also formerly employed by the CIA, is stuck working the graveyard shift at the local gas station. 
 
Armed with a ton of unique and not obviously useful skills for peacetime living, both are recruited into a shadowy network of so-called ‘sheepdogs’ working jobs for an anonymous dispatcher. 
 
Their first mission? To repossess a luxury private jet stranded on a remote Ugandan airfield. Their fee: a cut of the jet’s $5 million value. But nothing about the job adds up. Their contact vanishes. Their handler’s motives are suspect. And when the women in their lives get involved – one pregnant wife and one dominatrix – the stakes skyrocket overnight. 
 
From the jungles of Kampala to the glitz of Marseille, Sheepdogs is a sly, hilarious, action-packed thriller introducing an instantly iconic spy duo. Operating in the moral grey zone between predator and prey, this is a wild ride through the absurd underworld of war and intelligence. 
 
‘Skwerl, Cheese, Dickhead Mike, the White Russian – these characters are totally addictive. I couldn’t put Sheepdogs down. A thriller and comedy in one, it’s a wild ride’ HARLAN COBEN 
 
‘Sheepdogs is the best thriller I’ve read in a long, long time. With a perfect blend of action and humor, I was hooked from the first page and couldn’t put it down until I’d finished . . . an absolute gem of a novel’ KEVIN POWERS

Sheepdogs

Ravi Somaiya

A PLANE CRASH IN THE JUNGLE. 
A LEGENDARY STATESMAN DEAD. 
A TRAGIC ACCIDENT... OR THE ULTIMATE CONSPIRACY? 
 
In 1961, a Douglas DC-6B aeroplane transporting the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, disappeared over the Congolese jungle at the height of the Cold War. Soon afterward, Hammarskjöld was discovered in the smoking wreckage, an Ace of Spades playing card placed on his body. He had been heralded as the Congo's best hope for peace and independence. Now he was dead. 
 
The circumstances of that night have remained one of the Cold War's most tightly guarded secrets for decades. Now, with exclusive evidence, investigative journalist Ravi Somaiya finally uncovers the truth, with dark implications for governments and corporations alike.

Operation Morthor

The Death of Dag Hammarskjöld and the Last Great Mystery of the Cold War

Jack du Brul

Charismatic, handsome, and fiercely loyal, Isaac Bell is a no-nonsense private detective at the Von Dorn Detective Agency. Travelling all over early 20th century America in pursuit of justice for his clients, chasing down a steam train in a sports automobile is all in a day's work for Bell. And while he's on the trail of thieves, killers, and sometimes much worse, he'll have to use his every last wit to stay ahead of those he seeks, and to stay alive. . .

When the Van Dorn Agency's top detective, Isaac Bell, thwarts a plot to kill a US Senator, the race is on to uncover who was behind it and what they hoped to gain. 
 
 For Panama's Red Viper insurgency, the senator's death could have brought a welcome halt to the construction of the giant canal that threatens to divide their country. 
 
 With millions of dollars, the fates of two nations and the future of world trade at stake, Bell knows this is bigger than local trouble. 
 
 He just doesn't know yet how big . . .

The Saboteurs

Isaac Bell #12

Mike Maden

JOIN JUAN CABRILLO AND THE OREGON CREW IN THE LATEST EXPLOSIVE THRILL-RIDE FROM THE GRAND MASTER OF ADVENTURE, CLIVE CUSSLER 
Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon must battle an army of genetically engineered mercenaries to stop a hypersonic missile attack in this explosive new instalment 
The Adventure King' Sunday Express 
 
 'Just about the best in the business' New York Post 
 ---- 
A hypersonic missile. A genetically engineered army. A worldwide plot of destruction . . . 
 
 When Juan Cabrillo, captain of the state-of-the-art Oregon, is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya, he lands his crew in a snakepit of trouble – and at the centre of a possible Middle Eastern war. 
 
 Seeking to block the deadly ambitions of a Saudi prince, Cabrillo's crew need to find two missing hypersonic missiles while also facing down a force of bio-hacked soldiers endowed with an unquenchable appetite for violence. 
 
 From a remote Tibetan fortress via the Amazon rainforest to the jagged mountains of Yemen, the Oregon team must use every shred of courage and cunning they can muster to stop the Arabian Sea turning red . . .

Clive Cussler's Fire Strike

Owen Matthews

'This is Robert Harris storytelling territory and is told with equal panache and authenticity. There could be no higher praise.' Daily Mail 
 
One the least known but most terrifying moments in modern history - when the fate of the world lay with a lone, nervous Soviet naval officer one hundred meters under the Caribbean sea - lies at the heart of this breathtaking new Cold War thriller from the author of the acclaimed Black Sun. 
 
The year is 1962, and KGB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vasin is searching for ghosts: for evidence of the long-rumoured existence of an American spy embedded at the highest echelons of Soviet power. But it's while on this wild goose chase, a high-stakes espionage race against a rival State agency, that Vasin first hears whispers of an ominous top-secret undertaking: Operation Anadyr. 
 
 As tensions flare between Nikita Khrushchev and President Kennedy over Russian missiles hidden in Cuba, four Soviet submarines - each carrying tactical ballistic missiles armed with thermonuclear warheads - are ordered to make a covert run at the U.S. blockade in the Caribbean . . .

Red Traitor

Harry Venning

Neil Brand

Meet the bungling surveillance team you won&rsquo;t want on your tail.The time, now - the place, outside your window. Three surveillance operatives are on an unspecified job, working for an unspecified employer. Together, they are Beagle Team.Good surveillance operatives have patience, alertness and discretion - this is a series about the other type of surveillance operative. Bill (Richard Lumsden), career snoop and technical specialist, has long carried a torch for beautiful yet disconnected fieldworker Sharla (Nina Conti), who doesn't know he exists, despite sharing the back of a van with him for most of their working life. Mark (Daniel Kaluuya), an enthusiastic yet slightly criminal trainee, has been assigned to them by their unknown employer, who goes by the codename &lsquo;Huntsman&rsquo;. However, whilst the team should be focusing on honing their surveillance skills, they spend more time backstabbing and scapegoating each other. Usually the team member out in the field with the microphones&hellip;Faced with fresh targets, situations and locations, can the team botch their way to bringing down a team of blackmailers, stake out a Russian billionaire or learn anything from a CIA operative? What will happen when old rivals Terrier Team come onto their patch and what about that job so secret even the boss doesn&rsquo;t know about it?Sneakiepeeks is a laugh-out-loud comedy featuring an all-star cast including comedian Nina Conti, Clare in the Community's Richard Lumsden and Daniel Kaluuya, star of Skins, Get Out and Black Panther. It&rsquo;s written by Harry Venning, the creator of Clare in the Community, and Neil Brand, the creator of Big Broadcast.&copy;2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2024 BBC Studios Distribution LtdCast and creditsWritten by Harry Venning and Neil BrandProduced by Katie TyrellBill - Richard LumsdenSharla - Nina ContiMark - Daniel KaluuyaTony Savage/Captain Le Clerc - Kevin EldonGeoff/Boris/Bristow - John BigginsTed/Bolkonski - Shaban ArifiNanny/Milij/Russian Girl - Alex TregearMr Smith/Russian Crew/Ignatius/Fuego - Nigel HastingsMrs Smith/Russian Girl/Mrs A/Delphine - Kate LaydenBishop/Russian Crew/Mr A - Ewan HooperJustine/Mrs Davies/Secretary -Tessa NicholsonDavid/Colonel/Customer 2/Channing - Ewan BaileyMan - Rhys JenningsEdward Barraclough MP/Ian - Paterson Joseph 
Norris/Tim the Tea Boy - Joe Thomas 
Ros/Mrs Davies - Lucy Montgomery 
Customer 1- Harry Venning 
Customer 3 - Neil BrandFirst Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 8 December 2009

Sneakiepeeks

A Full-Cast BBC Radio Comedy

Lee Child

Andrew Child

Jack Reacher is a former major in the US Military Police who, since leaving the army, has drifted round the wide open spaces of America, hitchhiking or on buses, wherever the whim takes him. He has no permanent address, no job, no family ties, no car, no luggage, no mobile phone, no credit card - all he carries with him is a folding toothbrush. 
Reacher is never looking for trouble, but somehow trouble always find him. He is the ultimate hero for our troubled times, with a keen moral compass and sense of justice, even if he is often prepared to take the law into his own hands: he says he doesn't want to put the world to rights, he just doesn't like people who put it to wrongs.

Reacher never backs down from a problem. 
 
And he's about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems. 
 
Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. Next to him is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother. He might have got mixed up with some dangerous people. 
 
And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit. 
 
Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town. Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible. 
 
To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets. 
 
But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead. 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Better Off Dead is the 26th book in the internationally popular series. 
 
And be sure not to miss Reacher's newest adventure, no.29, In Too Deep! ***OUT NOW*** 
 
____ 
 
'Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' KEN FOLLETT 
 
'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' The Times 
 
'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review 
 
'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People 
 
'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times 
 
 
Lee Child & Andrew Child, Number 1 Sunday Times bestsellers, April 2024

Better Off Dead

(Jack Reacher 26)

Graham Greene

A young boy, Victor, is collected from school by a stranger in a bowler hat - the stranger says he has won Victor in a game of backgammon with Victor's father. The stranger, known as the Captain, takes Victor to live with the sweet but withdrawn Lisa, where he serves as her conduit to the outside world. From mysterious beginnings, Graham Greene's final novel becomes a twisting thriller of smuggling, jewel theft and international espionage which culminates in a dramatic showdown in Panama.

The Captain and the Enemy

Justin Scott

It is 1906, and in New York City, the Italian crime group known as the Black Hand is on a spree: kidnapping, extortion, arson. Detective Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Agency is hired to form a special Black Hand Squad, but the gangsters appear to be everywhere so much so that Bell begins to wonder if there are imitators, criminals using the name for the terror effect. And then the murders begin, each one of a man more powerful than the last, and as Bell discovers, to his dismay, the ultimate target may be the most powerful man of all.

The Gangster

Isaac Bell #9

The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, a British soldier's son born in 1947 in a newly independent Pakistan, and Sasha, the refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West. 
 
The two men meet first as students in riot-torn West Berlin of the late Sixties and again in the grimy looking-glass of Cold War espionage. When they meet once more, in today's unipolar world of terror, counter-terror and the war of lies, they become involved in clandestine activities - with lethal results. 
 
Absolute Friends is a superbly paced novel spanning fifty-six years, a theatrical masterstroke of tragi-comic writing, and a savage fable of our times.

Absolute Friends

A deadly war game. An adversary as hard to find as he is to kill. Weapons so sophisticated, none have seen the like before. Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon have finally met their match in this pulse-pounding new adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. 
 
When African jihadis attack a Nigerian regiment using American weapons, Cabrillo and the Oregon crew are on the case, investigating from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to track a mysterious arms dealer—a genius, or perhaps a devil—known only as the Vendor. 
 
Cabrillo goes undercover to find the Vendor’s base, but his adversary isn’t just an arms smuggler. He’s an arms maker, and Cabrillo just walked into a lethal military game alongside the most dangerous mercenaries in the world, designed to test the Vendor’s cutting-edge AI arsenal. 
 
And yet, surviving an arena full of flame-throwing robots isn’t even his biggest problem. The Vendor has an army of high-speed drones headed for a pivotal military site, and if the Oregon crew can’t stop them from releasing a deadly neurotoxin, the entire globe will erupt in conflict.

Clive Cussler’s Ghost Soldier

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. 
 
Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. 
 
If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

A Delicate Truth

Kristín Ómarsdóttir

'Magical and disturbing' Adam Thirlwell 
 
An astonishing, mind-bending novel about a woman discovering a community of swan-people from one of Iceland's greatest writers. 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE ICELANDIC WOMEN'S LITERATURE PRIZE* 
 
In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elísabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her life. 
 
Elísabet likes to take long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality. 
 
Pulled into the monomaniacal, and often violent, quest of the swanfolk, Elísabet finds her own mind increasingly untrustworthy. Soon, she is forced to reckon with the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings, and a past life she has been trying to evade. 
 
'Ómarsdottir's skills as a poet and playwright are evident' Helen Oyeyemi, New York Review of Books

Swanfolk

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa. 
 
Poignant, compassionate, peopled with characters the reader never wants to let go, A Most Wanted Man is alive with humour, yet prickles with tension until the last heart-stopping page. It is also a work of deep humanity, and uncommon relevance to our times.

A Most Wanted Man

David Stone

The Orpheus Deception opens with a brutal assassination attempt on the rainy streets of Venice that sets CIA agent Micah Dalton on a collision course with a vengeful Serbian warlord. 
 
Picking up where The Echelon Vendetta left off &ndash; Dalton is still on the run from the CIA, finding himself ever more entangled in a web of conspiracies. He tries to uncover the links between a savage act of piracy in the South China Sea, the disappearance of a CIA agent, and an elusive ship known only as &ldquo;Orpheus.&rdquo; 
 
As he desperately seeks to unlock the shattering secret, Dalton is once again caught up in an international chase that takes him from Italy to Singapore and finally back to his homeland and ever-greater danger to himself&hellip;

The Orpheus Deception

C.S. Forester

Full cast BBC Radio productions of five of C. S. Forester’s classic novels 
 
Most famous for his Hornblower series, iconic writer C. S. Forester tells tales of adventure like no other. This BBC radio collection features modern adaptations of five of his acclaimed novels, including The African Queen (famously adapted as an Oscar-winning film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn) and The Gun, which was turned into the hit Hollywood movie The Pride and the Passion. 
 
The African Queen – East Africa, 1915. When missionary Rose Sayer’s brother dies and the German army invade their village, she finds herself thrown together with cowardly Cockney Charlie Allnut in his rickety steam-powered boat, The African Queen. Together, they brave German attacks, rapids, malaria and mechanical mishaps – but can they survive each other’s company? This radio dramatisation goes back to the novel, reinstating Forester's original ending and giving Charlie his Cockney identity back. Samantha Bond stars as Rose, with Toby Jones as Charlie. 
 
London Noir – Based on early novels by C. S. Forester, these three psychological thrillers take crime writing in a new direction by portraying ordinary, desperate people engaging in monstrous acts. Set in the 1920s, Payment Deferred centres around a bank clerk who commits a heinous crime to get out of debt, while Plain Murder sees three ad men plotting the ‘perfect murder’. And in The Pursued, it is 1935, and an elderly lady becomes obsessed with revenge when her daughter is found dead. Greg Wise narrates these chilling dramas, with casts including Sam Dale, Bryan Dick and Sophie Thompson. 
 
The Gun – This masterful historical drama tells the story of a massive 18-pounder gun that falls into the hands of Spanish partisans during the Peninsular War. Dragged across the mountains and plains of Spain, it becomes a potent symbol of pride and resistance – and changes the lives of those who fight each other to the death to gain control of it. Scott Arthur and Matthew Grevelle star in this gripping tale of guerrilla warfare. 
 
Text copyright C. S. Forester 1926 (Payment Deferred), 1930 (Plain Murder), 1933 (The Gun), 1935 (The African Queen, The Pursued) 
 
Cast and credits 
Written by C. S. Forester 
 
The African Queen 
Featuring Samantha Bond, Toby Jones, Stephen Critchlow, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Acton 
Adapted by Paul Mendelson 
Produced and directed by David Ian Neville 
Music composed and played by Gary C. Newman 
 
London Noir 
Dramatised by Paul Mendelson 
Produced and directed by David Ian Neville 
Music composed by Gary C. Newman 
Clarinet: Samantha Baldwin 
 
Payment Deferred 
Featuring Greg Wise, Sam Dale, Rebecca Lacey, Teresa Gallagher, Nick Underwood, David Thorpe, Sam Cummings, Emily Dolbear 
 
Plain Murder 
Featuring Greg Wise, Bryan Dick, Susie Riddell, Crawford Logan, David Seddon, Christopher Webster, David Holt, Cassie Layton, Imogen Barnes 
 
The Pursued 
Featuring Greg Wise, Sophie Thompson, Ben Crowe, Tessa Peake-Jones, Richard Lumsden, Carl Prekopp, Charlie Abbit, Cassie Layton 
 
The Gun 
Featuring Scott Arthur, Matthew Gravelle, Keiron Self, Don Gilet, Kevin Doyle 
Dramatised by Mike Walker 
Produced by Polly Thomas 
 
 
© 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

C.S. Forester: The African Queen, The Gun and more

5 Full Cast Dramatisations of iconic novels

Manda Scott

These spy thrillers set in Ancient Rome follow Sebastos Pantera and his return from the cold of a mission in Britannia to spy for Emperor Nero. Rome is burning, and only Sebastos can save it.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author Manda Scott, a captivating, stirring and breath-taking historical adventure full of honour, loyalty and bravery. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow, Robert Harris and Conn Iggulden. 
 
"A tale that shines like the Eagle at its heart. I suspect that no one else writes like M. C. Scott. I'm certain plenty wish they could." -- GILES KRISTIAN 
 
"Enthralling...Gladiator meets Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in a baroque landscape." -- ROBERT LOWE 
 
"Compulsive reading" -- ***** Reader review 
 
"Truly consummate, well-written historical fiction" -- ***** Reader review 
 
*********************************** 
 
THEY ARE KNOWN AS THE LEGION OF THE DAMNED... 
 
Throughout the Roman Army, the brutal XIIth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. And yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he will come to love the Twelfth and the bloody-minded, dark-hearted soldiers he calls his brothers. 
 
But during the punishing Judaean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but taking away their soul - the eagle. 
 
There is just one final chance to save the legion's honour - to steal it back. To do that, Demalion and his legionnaries must go undercover into Jerusalem, into the very heart of their enemy. 
 
Recovering their pride is paramount but discovery will mean the worst of deaths...

Rome: The Eagle Of The Twelfth

(Rome 3): A action-packed and riveting historical adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat

The Cold War is over and retired secret servant Tim Cranmer has been put out to pasture, spending his days making wine on his Somerset estate. But then he discovers that his former double agent Larry ­- dreamer, dissolute, philanderer and disloyal friend - has vanished, along with Tim's mistress. As their trail takes him to the lawless wilds of Russia and the North Caucasus, he is forced to question everything he stood for. 
 
Set in a fragmented, uncertain post-Soviet world, le Carré's brutal story of falsehoods and betrayal shows men playing dangerous games beyond their control.

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