David Monteath has narrated 50 audiobooks on Listento.it by 22 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 70 ratings. The most-rated is The Forest Laird.
The Forest Laird
Summary
In the pre-dawn hours of August 24th, 1305, in London's Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace - hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England - sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. This brutal sundering of his body is the revenge of the English. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last confession, a priest who knows Wallace like a brother. Wallace's confession - the tale that follows - is all the more remarkable because it comes from real life. We follow Wallace through his many lives - as outlaw and fugitive, hero and patriot, rebel and kingmaker. His exploits and escapades, desperate struggles and victorious campaigns are all here, as are the high ideals and fierce patriotism that drove him to abandon the people he loved to save his country. William Wallace is the first heroic figure from the Scottish Wars of Independence, a man whose fame has reached far beyond his homeland. Wallace served as a subject for the Academy Award - winning film Braveheart. In The Forest Laird, Jack Whyte's masterful storytelling breathes life into Wallace's tale, giving listeners an amazing character study of the man who helped shape Scotland's future.
©2010 Jack Whyte (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Checkmate
Summary
Penguin presents the audio edition of Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett, read by David Monteath. It is 1557, and legendary Scottish warrior Francis Crawford of Lymond is once more in France. There he is leading an army to rout the hated English from Calais. Yet while Lymond seeks victory on the battlefield, he is haunted by his troubled past - chiefly the truth about his origins and his marriage (in name only) to young Englishwoman Philippa Somerville. As the French offer him a way out of his marriage and his wife appears in France on a mission of her own, the final moves are made in a great game that has been playing out over an extraordinary decade of war, love and struggle - bringing the Lymond Chronicles to a spellbinding close.
©1999 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2018 Penguin Books Ltd
The Guardian
Summary
Some men strive for greatness. And some men find themselves thrust into the role of their nation's saviors. Such are the two heroes who reshaped and reconfigured the entire destiny of the kingdom of Scotland. Wallace the Braveheart would become the only legendary, heroic, commoner in medieval British history; the undying champion of the common man. The other, Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, would perfect the techniques of guerrilla warfare developed by Wallace and use them to create his own place in history as the greatest king of Scots. In the spring of 1297, the two men meet in Ayr, in the south of Scotland, each having recently lost a young wife, one in childbirth and the other by murder. Each is heartbroken but determined in his grief to defy the ambitions of England and its malignant king, Edward Plantagenet, whose lust to conquer and consume the realm of Scotland is blatant and unyielding. Their combined anger at the injustices of the invading English is about to unleash a storm in Scotland that will last for 16 years - and destroy England's military power for decades - before giving rise to a new nation of free men. Jack Whyte is a master of the sweeping historical epic and The Guardian is the latest in his evocative chronicle of the formation of his beloved Scotland.
©2014 Jack Whyte (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Whisky from Small Glasses
Summary
DCI Jim Daley is sent from the city to investigate a murder after the body of a woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the West Coast of Scotland. Far away from urban resources, he finds himself a stranger in a close-knit community. Love, betrayal, fear and death stalk the small town as Daley investigates a case that becomes more deadly than he could possibly imagine in this compelling Scottish crime novel infused with intrigue and dark humour. Denzil Meyrick was born in Glasgow and brought up in Campbeltown. After studying politics, he pursued a varied career including time spent as a police officer, freelance journalist and director of several companies. Beginning with Whisky from Small Glasses, The Last Witness and Dark Suits and Sad Songs, the DCI Daley series have all become Scottish Crime best sellers, with all three entering the Kindle top 10.
©2015 Denzil Meyrick (P)2015 Audible, Ltd
The Game of Kings
Summary
In this first book in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, Francis Crawford of Lymond, traitor, murderer, nobleman, returns to Scotland to redeem his reputation and save his home. It is 1547, and Scotland has been humiliated by an English invasion and is threatened by machinations elsewhere beyond its borders, but it is still free. Paradoxically, her freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapegrace nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, possessed of a scholar's erudition and a tongue as wicked as a rapier. In The Game of Kings, this extraordinary antihero returns to the country that has outlawed him to redeem his reputations even at the risk of his life.
©2010 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Renegade
Summary
The year 1284 is a period of seeming peace in Scotland. It is also a time when the future of the country is being forged in the form of a young boy, 10-year-old Robert Bruce. In the decade that follows, King Alexander dies without an heir, and Scotland falls into chaos. The potential for civil war brings a growing threat of invasion from England as Edward I, young Bruce's hero and feudal patron, develops an obsession with adding Scotland, like Wales, to England's Crown by conquest. One man with extraordinary vision and strength will unite Scotland's warring factions against the larger threat that looms beyond its borders, but to do so he will have to resolve the conflict of his own personal, feudal, and national loyalties. This is the story of the man destined to be Robert I, King of Scots. Filled with intrigue, high adventure, and remarkable characters, The Renegade is a dazzling feat of storytelling that weaves fascinating historical detail into the drama and excitement for which Jack Whyte is renowned.
©2012 Jack Whyte (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
The Ringed Castle
Summary
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett, read by David Monteath. 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. Yet neither Lymond nor Philippa, caught up in their own scheming, can quite see the vast conspiracy enshrouding them....
©1971 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2018 Penguin Books Ltd
Well of the Winds
Summary
As the Second World War nears its end, a man is stabbed to death on the shoreline of Kinloch, in the shadow of the great warships in the harbour. Many years later the postman on Gairsay, a tiny island off the coast of Kintyre, discovers that the Bremner family are missing from their farm. There's a pot on the stove and food on the table, but of the Bremners there is no sign. When DCI Daley comes into possession of a journal written by his wartime predecessor in Kinloch, Inspector William Urquhart, he soon realises that the Isle of Gairsay has many secrets. Assisted by his indomitable deputy, DS Brian Scott, and new boss, Chief Superintendent Carrie Symington, Daley must solve a wartime murder to uncover the shocking events of the past and the present.
©2017 Denzil Meyrick (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
Morningstar
Summary
A country in desperate need of heroes. Angostin invaders surge through the Highlands, laying waste to everything in their path. Darkness follows in their wake as a mad necromancer resurrects the eons-dead Vampyre Kings. Only the bandit Jarek Mace, and the magicker and bard Owen Odell, have the courage to fight the Angostins and the undead. Whispers soon spread that Mace is the legendary Morningstar, a saviour who will protect his country in its hour of need. Yet Mace seems nothing more than a thief and a liar. As the final battle approaches, Odell wonders which of the two Maces will triumph: the self-serving rogue or the saviour of his people, the Morningstar.
©1992 David Gemmell (P)2018 Little Brown Book Group
The Relentless Tide
Summary
When Professor Francombe and her team of archaeologists find the remains of three women on a remote Kintyre hillside - a site rumoured to have been the base of Viking warlord Somerled - their delight soon turns to horror when they realise the women tragically met their end little more than two decades ago. It soon becomes clear that these are the three missing victims of the ‘Midweek Murderer’, a serial killer who was at work in Glasgow in the early 1990s. DCI Jim Daley now has the chance to put things right - to confront a nightmare from his past and solve a crime he failed to as a young detective. However, when Police Scotland’s Cold Case Unit arrive, they bring yet more ghosts to Kinloch. A tale of death, betrayal, Viking treasure and revenge set in the thin places where past, present and future collide.
©2018 Denzil Meyrick (P)2018 Audible, Ltd
Queens' Play
Summary
This second book in the legendary Lymond Chronicles follows Francis Crawford of Lymond who has been abruptly called into the service of Mary Queen of Scots. Though she is only a little girl, the queen is already the object of malicious intrigues that extend from her native country to the court of France. It is to France that Lymond must travel, exercising his sword hand and his agile wit while also undertaking the most unlikely of masquerades, all to make sure that his charge's royal person stays intact.
©2010 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Rat Stone Serenade
Summary
It's December, and the Shannon family are returning home to their clifftop mansion near Kinloch for their annual AGM. Shannon International is one of the world's biggest private companies, with tendrils reaching around the globe in computing, banking and mineral resourcing, and it has brought untold wealth and privilege to the family. However, a century ago Archibald Shannon stole the land upon which he built their home, and his descendants have been cursed ever since. When heavy snow cuts off Kintyre, DCI Jim Daley and DS Brian Scott are assigned to protect their illustrious visitors. As an ancient society emerges from the blizzards, and its creation, the Rat Stone, reveals grisly secrets, ghosts of the past come to haunt the Shannons. As the curse decrees, death is coming. But for whom, and from what?
©2016 Denzil Meyrick (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
A Breath on Dying Embers
Summary
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?
The arrival of a face from the past sends Daley’s world into a tailspin. And the lives of the passengers and crew of SS Great Britain as well as the country’s economic future are in jeopardy. DS Brian Scott comes to the fore and, replete with a temporary promotion, is once more - most reluctantly, in his case - back at sea.
Daley faces a life and death struggle, but is this his last throw of the dice?
©2019 Denzil Meyrick (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Dark Suits and Sad Songs
Summary
The third installment in the best-selling DCI Daley series, packed with accurate police procedure and gritty, dark humour. The best of Scottish crime. When a senior Edinburgh civil servant spectacularly takes his own life in Kinloch harbour, DCI Jim Daley comes face to face with the murky world of politics. To add to his woes, two local drug dealers lie dead, ritually assassinated. It's clear that dark forces are at work in the town. With his boss under investigation, his marriage hanging on by a thread, and his sidekick, DS Scott, wrestling with his own demons, Daley's world is in meltdown. When strange lights appear in the sky over Kinloch, it becomes clear that the townsfolk are not the only people at risk. The fate of nations is at stake. Jim Daley must face his worst fears as tragedy strikes. This is not just about a successful investigation; it's about survival.
©2015 Denzil Meyrick (P)2015 Audible, Ltd
One Last Dram Before Midnight
Summary
Bringing together six short stories - two of which are previously unpublished - One Last Dram Before Midnight is perfect for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley's early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a lighthearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers.
©2017 Denzil Meyrick (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
Dead Eyed
Summary
Gritty, complex and effortlessly chilling, Brolly’s Dead Eyed is a grisly crime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. DCI Michael Lambert thought he’d closed his last case.... Yet when he’s passed a file detailing a particularly gruesome murder, Michael knows that this is no ordinary killer at work. The removal of the victim’s eyes and the Latin inscription carved into the chest is the chilling calling card of the ‘soul jacker’: a cold-blooded murderer who struck close to Michael once before, 25 years ago. Now the long-buried case is being reopened, and Michael is determined to use his inside knowledge to finally bring the killer to justice. But as the body count rises, Michael realises that his own links to the victims could mean that he is next on the killer’s list.... The gripping first novel in a thrilling new crime series by Matt Brolly. Perfect for fans of Tony Parsons, Lee Child and Angela Marsons.
©2019 Matt Brolly (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Eye For An Eye
Summary
One psychopath. One killer. The Stabber. Six victims, all wife beaters. Each stabbed to death through their left eye. Six victims, all wife beaters. Each stabbed to death through their left eye. The cobbled lanes and backstreets of St Andrews provide the setting for these brutal killings. But six unsolved murders and mounting censure from the media force DI Andy Gilchrist off the case. Driven by his fear of failure, and desperate to redeem his career and reputation, Gilchrist vows to catch The Stabber alone... Frank Muir was born in Glasgow and plagued from a young age with the urge to see more of the world than the rain sodden slopes of the Campsie Fells. Twenty-five years of working overseas helped him appreciate the raw beauty of his home country.
©2008 T. F. Muir (P)2013 Audible Ltd
Checkmate
Summary
Sixth in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, Checkmate takes place in 1557, where Francis Crawford of Lymond is once again in France, leading an army against England. But even as the Scots adventurer succeeds brilliantly on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to forces on both sides.
©2010 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2019 Random House Audio
Midnight Hunt
Summary
Driven by the desire to meet the true love she's experienced in her dreams, Monika Konrads uses her magickal skills to weave a love spell during the waxing of the moon. As if in response, a strangely familiar and handsome Scotsman is seeking to settle in their village. But the werewolf stalking Monika has other ideas about who her love interest should be. Broderick MacDougal is drawn to the powerful witch by a familiar force, and makes the chestnut-haired wise woman his next pursuit to unravel the mystery of why she reminds him so much of his late wife, Davina. However, there are other supernatural forces surrounding her, exposing Rick to a darker side of this deal he made for immortality...and this enchanting nymph may be his only salvation. Monika's quest to find a cure for the werewolf curse causes a chain of events that starts a witch hunt, dooming both her and Broderick to the fiery stake of judgment. And through these trials, they learn the Church has a new ally who is hunting down the members of the Army of Light. Advisory: This story contains some explicit love scenes, described using graphic and direct language.
©2013 G.C. Henderson (P)2017 G.C. Henderson
Pawn in Frankincense
Summary
In this fourth book in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, Francis Crawford of Lymond desperately searches the Ottoman empire for his kidnapped child. Somewhere within the bejeweled labyrinth of the Ottoman empire, a child is hidden. Now his father, Francis Crawford of Lymond, soldier of fortune and the exiled heir of Scottish nobility, is searching for him while ostensibly engaged on a mission to the Turkish sultan. At stake is the political order of three continents, for Lymond's child is a pawn in a cutthroat game whose gambits include treason, enslavement, and murder. In that game's final move, which is played inside the harem of the Topkapi palace, Lymond will come face to face with his most implacable enemy and the dreadful ambiguities of his own nature. With a foreword by the author.
©2010 Dorothy Dunnett (P)2019 Random House Audio