Peter Forbes has narrated 35 audiobooks on Listento.it by 13 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 632 ratings. The most-rated is Coffin Road.
Runaway
Summary
"Five of us had run away that fateful night just over a month before. Only three of us would be going home. And nothing, nothing would ever be the same again." Glasgow, 1965. Headstrong teenager Jack Mackay cannot allow for even the possibility of a life of predictability and routine. The 17-year-old has just one destination on his mind - London - and successfully convinces his four friends and fellow bandmates to join him in abandoning their homes to pursue a goal of musical stardom. Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay dares not look back on a life of failure and mediocrity. The heavy-hearted 67-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some 50 years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most, are memories he has tried to escape his entire adult life. London, 2015. A man lies dead in a one-room flat. His killer looks on, remorseless. What started with five teenagers following a dream five decades before has been transformed over the intervening decades into a waking nightmare that might just consume them all. Runaway is a tense crime thriller spanning a half century of friendships solidified and severed, dreams shared and shattered, passions ignited and extinguished, all set against the backdrop of two unique cities at two unique and transformational periods of recent history.
©2016 Peter May (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Cast Iron
Summary
IN THE RED-HOT FINALE TO PETER MAY'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ENZO FILES, ENZO MACLEOD WILL FACE HIS MOST CHALLENGING COLD CASE YET. "ENDS MACLEOD'S QUEST WITH A FLOURISH." (MARILYN STASIO, THE NEW YORK TIMES) "A SATISFYING SURPRISE." (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW) "THE LAST SHALL BE BEST." (KIRKUS REVIEWS) Western France, 1989 A weeping killer deposits the unconscious body of 20-year-old Lucie Martin, her head wrapped in a blue plastic bag, into the waters of a picturesque lake. Lot-et-Garonne, 2003 Fourteen years later, a summer heat wave parches the countryside, killing trees and bushes and drying out streams. In the scorched mud and desiccated slime of the lake, a fisherman finds a skeleton wearing a bag over its skull. Paris, October 2011 In an elegant apartment in Paris, forensic expert Enzo Macleod, now 56 years old, pores over the scant evidence of the sixth and final cold case he has been challenged to solve. The most obvious suspect is Régis Blanc, a former pimp already imprisoned for the murders of three sex workers, who may have been Lucie's lover in the months before her disappearance. But Régis has a solid alibi, and Enzo has a feeling the real explanation might be more complicated. In taking on this old and seemingly impossible-to-crack case, Enzo puts everything and everyone he holds dear in terrible danger - and in ways even he never could have imagined.
©2017 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Freeze Frame
Summary
"EXCELLENT.... WITH ITS INTRICATE PLOT, COMPELLING CHARACTERS, AND BOMBSHELL DENOUEMENT, THIS UNSETTLING ENZO FILES INSTALLMENT IS A MUST-READ." (Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review) A crime scene frozen in time, a hostile local population, and a cryptic set of clues make this one of Enzo's most challenging cases. Forensics expert Enzo Macleod travels to a tiny island off the coast of Brittany to honor a promise he made long ago to a dead man, to investigate his 20-year-old murder. In a fascinating development, Enzo learns that the man's study - the scene of the crime - has been completely untouched ever since. In the claustrophobic environment of the island's close-knit community, where the locals have no desire to see this painful case reopened, Macleod must try to find clues in plain sight that earlier investigators missed. Complicating matters are the man's attractive widow, who yearns for closure, and a man who was accused and acquitted of having committed the crime - who still remains the best suspect.
©2017 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Blacklight Blue
Summary
"A CEREBRAL, CHILLING TALE BOUND TO BURNISH MAY'S REPUTATION." (Kirkus Reviews) "AN UNUSUALLY COMPELLING, ONGOING SAGA." (Publishers Weekly) "HIS COMPLICATED TALE WEAVES THREADS OF THE PAST INTO THE PRESENT.... AN ENGROSSING MYSTERY." (Library Journal) Former forensics expert and current Toulouse professor Enzo Macleod is forced to take a break from his personal and professional pursuits when he is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Worse, though, it seems he has become the victim of someone who is trying to destroy his life - by ruining his credit, threatening him and his family, and finally framing him for murder. With no choice but to fight back, Macleod stashes his family in a safe house and sets to work. Increasingly convinced that the cold case he's investigating is connected to his persecution, Macleod tries to connect the dots before it's too late to save his life and the lives of those he loves.
©2017 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Chinese Whispers
Summary
The Beijing Ripper makes a personal vendetta against Detective Li Yan in the thrilling final episode of the series.... Gruesome murders His victims are young, beautiful, and coldly mutilated. He calls himself the Beijing Ripper. Li Yan, head of Beijing's serious crime squad, must stop him. Fearsome letters Just as pathologist Margaret Campbell finds an insight into the killer's cruel signature, Li receives a letter from the killer, betraying his cruel intentions. Chinese whispers There's no way Li can misinterpret the Ripper's motives: He wants to tear Li and Campbell's lives apart, and write the darkest chapter in Beijing's history.
©2019 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
The Runner
Summary
The penultimate novel in the China series, from the Richard and Judy million-selling author of The Blackhouse. The Sufferer A prodigious Chinese swimmer kills himself on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Days later, a champion weightlifter suffers a fatal heart attack prior to competition. The Listener Detective Li Yan senses a conspiracy surrounding the fatalities and finds a female athlete willing to talk. But she will trust only one person: Li's fiancée, Margaret Campbell. The Runner When Campbell's contact herself vanishes, the gun is fired on a race against time. And Li must now outrun, and outwit, an enemy bent on pushing him beyond endurance.
©2012 Peter May (P)2017 Quercus Editions Limited
A Silent Death
Summary
The scorching new thriller from the million-selling author of The Blackhouse, Coffin Road and I'll Keep You Safe. A silent vow. Spain, 2020. When expat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge by destroying the policewoman. A silent life. Cristina's aunt Ana has been deaf-blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the centre of Cristina's world - and of Cleland's cruel plan. A silent death. John Mackenzie - an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator - is seconded to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word. Peter May's latest best seller unites a strong, independent Spaniard with a socially inept Scotsman; a senseless vendetta with a sense-deprived victim; and a red-hot Costa Del Sol with an ice-cold killer.
©2020 Peter May (P)2020 Quercus Editions Limited
Snakehead
Summary
The fourth China Thriller, from the million-selling Peter May - author of the Richard and Judy best seller The Blackhouse. Suffocated A vehicle crammed with dozens of dead Chinese immigrants is found in Southern Texas. Pathologist Margaret Campbell must put aside her horror and find out why. Summoned Detective Li Yan - an even more unwelcome memory for Campbell - has arrived stateside to investigate a link in the case to a lucrative trade in illegal labourers. Snakehead Yan and Campbell will soon find that the crime scene hides another secret: a biological time bomb linking traffickers, politicians and migrants in Beijing, Washington and Texas - posing multiple countries one very singular threat.
©2012 Peter May (P)2017 Quercus Editions Limited
Conan Doyle for the Defense
Summary
“A wonderfully vivid portrait of the man behind Sherlock Holmes...Like all the best historical true crime books, it’s about so much more than crime.” (Tana French, author of In the Woods) A sensational Edwardian murder. A scandalous wrongful conviction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the rescue - a true story. After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world renowned as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom. With “an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research” (The Wall Street Journal), Margalit Fox immerses listeners in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in its history, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method. Praise for Conan Doyle for the Defense: “Artful and compelling...[Fox’s] narrative momentum never flags....Conan Doyle for the Defense will captivate almost any reader while being pure catnip for the devotee of true-crime writing.” (The Washington Post) “Developed with brio...[Fox] is excellent in linking the 19th-century creation of policing and detection with the development of both detective fiction and the science of forensics - ballistics, fingerprints, toxicology and serology - as well as the quasi science of ‘criminal anthropology.’” (The New York Times Book Review) “Gripping...The book works on two levels, much like a good Holmes case. First, it is a fluid story of a crime....Second, and more pertinently, it is a deeper story of how prejudice against a class of people, the covering up of sloppy police work and a poisonous political atmosphere can doom an innocent. We should all heed Holmes’s salutary lesson: rationally follow the facts to find the truth.” (Time)
©2018 Margalit Fox (P)2018 Random House Audio
Blowback
Summary
"CATNIP FOR ARMCHAIR SLEUTHS" (Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review) "ONE OF THE BEST MYSTERY WRITERS ON THE MARKET TODAY" (The Mystery Gazette) Continuing his string of investigations into stubborn cold cases, ex-forensics superstar Enzo Macleod takes the case, diving into the big business and high stakes of French haute cuisine. Seven years ago, France's top chef, Marc Fraysse, summoned the world's culinary press to his remote restaurant in central France to make an announcement that he said would cause shockwaves in the culinary community. Instead of an announcement, the reporters were shocked to find instead that the great chef had been murdered, and they left without a clue about the message the chef intended to deliver or who might have killed him. Winter has settled in around the mountaintop restaurant, causing complications, as Enzo learns more about the complex web of relationships that surrounded the celebrated (if also unpredictable) chef - a spurned lover, a jealous wife, an estranged brother, an embittered food critic.... Macleod begins to see parallels with his own life and loves. In diving into this new case, he finds himself reopening old wounds of his own.
©2017 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
A Poem for Every Day of the Year
Summary
A Poem for Every Day of the Year is a magnificent collection of 366 poems compiled by Allie Esiri, one to share on every day of the year. The collection is passionately narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and Simon Russell Beale, with introductions read by Allie Esiri and contributions from Damian Lynch and Peter Forbes. Reflecting the changing seasons and linking to events on key dates - funny for April Fool's Day, festive for Christmas - these poems are thoughtful, inspiring, humbling, informative, quiet, loud, small, epic, peaceful, energetic, upbeat, motivating and empowering! Perfect for listening to with all the family, this audiobook is bursting at the seams with familiar favourites and exciting new discoveries. T. S. Eliot, John Betjeman, Lewis Carroll, William Shakespeare and Christina Rossetti sit alongside Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Kate Tempest. This soul-enhancing audiobook is the perfect gift that will last the whole year, with a little bit of magic to hear every day. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the Track Listing and Acknowledgements can be found on a supplementary PDF which is available to download in your Library section along with the audio on our desktop site.
©2017 Allie Esiri (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio
Snakehead
Summary
Suffocated. A vehicle crammed with dozens of dead Chinese immigrants is found in Southern Texas. Forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell must put aside her horror and find out why. Summoned. Detective Li Yan - an even more unwelcome memory for Campbell - has arrived stateside to investigate a link in the case to a lucrative trade in illegal laborers. Snakehead. Li and Campbell will soon find that the crime scene hides another secret: a biological time bomb linking traffickers, politicians, and migrants in Beijing, Washington, and Texas - posing multiple countries one very singular threat.
©2002 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
The Night Gate
Summary
The brand-new thriller from the number one Sunday Times best seller. In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than 70 years apart. Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train - one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of occupied France, the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown. And Enzo's investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders - the Mona Lisa. Tasked by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle to keep the world's most famous painting out of Nazi hands after the fall of France in 1940, 28-year-old Georgette Pignal finds herself swept along by the tide of history. Following in the wake of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa as it is moved from château to château by the Louvre, she finds herself just one step ahead of two German art experts sent to steal it for rival patrons - Hitler and Göring. What none of them know is that the Louvre itself has taken exceptional measures to keep the painting safe, unwittingly setting in train a fatal sequence of events extending over seven decades. Events that have led to both killings. The Night Gate spans three generations, taking us from war-torn London, the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Berlin and Vichy France, to the deadly enemy facing the world in 2020. In his latest novel, Peter May shows why he is one of the great contemporary writers of crime fiction.
©2021 Peter May (P)2021 Quercus Editions Limited
The Runner
Summary
"A winner." (Publishers Weekly) "Fiendishly clever." (The Times) In this heart-stopping installment of Peter May's award-winning China Thrillers, the Beijing Olympics are the setting for fierce competition, national pride - and murder. The Sufferer A prodigious Chinese swimmer kills himself on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Days later, a champion weightlifter suffers a fatal heart attack prior to competition. The Listener Detective Li Yan senses a conspiracy surrounding the fatalities and finds a female athlete willing to talk. But she will trust only one person: Li's fiancée, Margaret Campbell. The Runner When Campbell's contact herself vanishes, the gun is fired on a race against time. And Li must now outrun - and outwit - an enemy bent on pushing him beyond endurance.
©2003 Peter May (P)2019 Hachette Audio
The Classical Music Book
Summary
From Mozart to Mendelssohn, this comprehensive guide to classical music history and classical music biography is the perfect latest addition to the best-selling Big Ideas series. Easy to understand and clear to follow, this history of classical music explores and explains music theory and the impact of seminal pieces, while also providing fascinating stories about the lives of crucial composers and performers. Including an insightful foreword by Katie Derham, The Classical Music Book analyses over 90 works by famous composers. From Thomas Tallis in the early period to baroque masters like Bach and Handel, to the classical genius of Beethoven and Wagner and beyond to the modern day, The Classical Music Book explores the key ideas underpinning the world's greatest classical compositions and musical traditions, and defines their importance to the musical canon, placing them into their wider social, cultural, and historical context. The unique approach to the subject makes this book the perfect classical music guide for everyone. Regardless of whether you are relatively new to the subject and want to learn or if you are a classical music aficionado, there is plenty to discover in The Classical Music Book.
©2020 DK (P)2020 Random House Audio