Philip Franks has narrated 32 audiobooks on Listento.it by 14 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 100 ratings. The most-rated is P. D. James BBC Radio Drama Collection.
P. D. James BBC Radio Drama Collection
Summary
Seven BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of P. D. James' acclaimed mysteries, plus P. D. James in Her Own Words. This collection includes: Cover Her Face P. D. James' debut novel, introducing her famous detective Adam Dalgliesh. Starring Robin Ellis as Dalgliesh. A Taste for Death Dalgliesh investigates when two bodies are found murdered a London church. Starring Richard Derrington as Dalgliesh. Devices and Desires Dalgliesh hunts a serial killer in desolate Norfolk. Starring Robin Ellis as Dalgliesh. A Certain Justice Dalgliesh probes the murder of a brilliant criminal lawyer. Starring Philip Franks as Dalgliesh. The Private Patient Dalgliesh investigates a high-profile murder at an exclusive cosmetic surgery clinic. Starring Richard Derrington as Dalgliesh. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman An eminent scientist hires Detective Cordelia Gray to discover why his son committed suicide. Starring Judi Bowker as Cordelia Gray. The Skull Beneath the Skin With her life in danger, actress Clarissa Lisle turns to private detective Cordelia Gray. Starring Greta Scacchi as Cordelia Gray. Among the supporting cast in these classic dramas are Siân Phillips, Hugh Grant, Anna Massey and Geraldine James. Also included is a bonus audio documentary, P. D. James in Her Own Words, in which the author discusses her professional career and private life.
©2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd
An Air That Kills
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court this is the first instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. Workmen in the small market town of Lydmouth are demolishing an old cottage. A sledgehammer smashes into what looks like a solid wall. Instead, layers of wallpaper conceal the door of a locked cupboard which holds a box - and in the box is the skeleton of a young baby. Items within the box suggest that the baby was entombed early in the 19th century, but when another man is also found dead, the evidence suggests that the baby's death is more recent and that a killer is on the loose. For journalist Jill Francis, newly arrived from London, this looks like her first story to chase....
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
Artists in Crime
Summary
One of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy. It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been reenacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed forever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion....
©1938 Original Text of 1938 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
A Man Lay Dead
Summary
Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....
©1934 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
The Waringham Chronicles, Volume 1: The Runaway
Summary
England in the 14th Century. Twelve-year-old Robin’s world is turned upside down when his father, the Earl of Waringham, dies in disgrace. His inheritance lost and his family name dishonoured, the penniless Robin must begin a new life as a peasant on his own estate. He soon makes an enemy in Mortimer, the spoiled young son of the new Earl. As the years pass and the boys enter adulthood, Robin flees Waringham to seek his fortune abroad. In Aquitaine he encounters the Black Prince and the charismatic Duke of Lancaster, and against all odds he begins to restore his position among the nobility. But Robin will need all his ingenuity to navigate these most dangerous and turbulent of times. In the first of a six-part epic, medieval Europe is brought to life in a multi-cast drama based on the novels by Rebecca Gable, author of the Scarlet City trilogy. Narrated by Miriam Margolyes, OBE (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Romeo + Juliet, Mulan) and featuring a full cast. Featuring: Ethan Alston, Daniel Anthony, Gareth Armstrong, Nick Brimble, Imogen Church, Clare Corbett, Raymond Coulthard, Gareth David-Lloyd, Barnaby Edwards, Jonathan Firth, Philip Franks, Raj Ghatak, Anthony Howell, Samuel Ide, Joe Jameson, Mack Keith-Roach, Jacqueline King, Damian Lynch, Michael Maloney, Miriam Margolyes, Barry McCarthy, George Naylor, Nicholas Pegg, Vineeta Rishi, Paul Shelley and Finty Williams.
©2019 Audible, Ltd (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
The Nursing Home Murder
Summary
Sir John Phillips, the Harley Street surgeon, and his beautiful nurse, Jane Harden, are almost too nervous to operate. The emergency case on the table before them is the Home Secretary - and they both have very good, personal reasons to wish him dead. Within hours he does die, although the operation itself was a complete success, and Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn must find out why....
©1935 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
The Mortal Sickness
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the second instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series When a spinster of the parish is found bludgeoned to death in St John's, and the church's most valuable possession, the Lydmouth chalice, is missing, the finger of suspicion points at the new vicar, who is already beset with problems. The glare of the police investigation reveals shabby secrets and private griefs. Jill Francis, struggling to find her feet in her new life, stumbles into the case at the beginning. But even a journalist cannot always watch from the sidelines. Soon she is inextricably involved in the Suttons' affairs. Despite the electric antagonism between her and Inspector Richard Thornhill, she has instincts that she can't ignore.
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
Surfeit of Lampreys
Summary
Ngaio Marsh’s most popular novel begins when a young New Zealander’s first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford - with a meat skewer through the eye.... The Lampreys had plenty of charm - but no cash. They all knew they were peculiar - and rather gloried in it. The double and triple charades, for instance, with which they would entertain their guests - like rich but awful Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore. The Lampreys thought if they jollied him up he would bail them out - yet again. Instead Uncle Gabriel met a violent end. And Chief Inspector Alleyn had to work our which of them killed him....
©1941 Original Text of 1941 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Death's Own Door
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The key to the mystery stretches back to a highly charged summer before the war and to another death. A local asylum plays a part, as do a moderately famous artist and his wife; Superintendent Williamson, now retired and loathing it; Councillor Bernie Broadbent, a man with more pies than fingers to put in them; a Cambridge don; an aristocratic unmarried mother, now gleefully drawing her old-age pension; and - to Thornhill's surprise and growing horror - his own wife, Edith.
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Call the Dying
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the seventh instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. Britain is basking in the warm glow of postwar tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toy shop. Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come.
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
The Lover of the Grave
Summary
From the number one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the third instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. After the coldest night of the year, they find the man's body. He is dangling from the Hanging Tree on the outskirts of a village near Lydmouth, with his trousers round his ankles. Is it suicide, murder, or accidental death resulting from some bizarre sexual practice? Journalist Jill Francis and Detective Inspector Thornhill become involved in the case in separate ways. Jill is also drawn unwillingly into the affairs of the small public school where the dead man taught. Meanwhile a Peeping Tom is preying upon Lydmouth; Jill has just moved into her own house and is afraid she is being watched. And there are more distractions, on a personal level, for policeman and reporter....
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Naked to the Hangman
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the final instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. As a young police officer in Palestine during the closing months of the Mandate - the cradle of Middle Eastern terrorism - Richard Thornhill saw and did things which still haunt his dreams and make him fear for his sanity. Is he himself a killer? Now, when a retired police officer is found dead in the ruins of Lydmouth Castle, the past has come back to claim Detective Inspector Thornhill and he is under suspicion of another murder. His wife, Edith, and former lover Jill Francis join forces in an uneasy alliance to try to help him. But there are many complications: scandalous allegations have been made about Miss Awre's School of Dancing, the Ruispidge Charity's annual dance for young people is under threat, teenagers haunt the newly opened Italian coffee bar and yearn for fumbled intimacies in the sheltering darkness of the Rex Cinema. And the spring floods are rising higher than they have in living memory, drowning a multitude of secrets.
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
The Suffocating Night
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fourth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. The Korean war rumbles in the background throughout this novel as a reporter is found murdered at the Bathurst Arms, squatters are evicted from a military camp and there are new developments in the three-year-old hunt for a missing teenager. And in spite of all that's going on, Jill Francis, a local journalist, and DI Richard Thornhill find they can no longer resist their feelings for each other.
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
Where Roses Fade
Summary
From the number-one best-selling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fifth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series. When Mattie Harris' body is found drowned in the river, everyone in Lydmouth knows something is wrong. Mattie wasn't a swimmer - it can't have been a simple accident. She was drunk on the last night of her life - could she have fallen in? Or was she pushed? Mattie was a waitress, of no importance at all, so when Lydmouth's most prominent citizens become very anxious to establish that her death was accidental, Jill Francis' suspicions become roused. In the meantime she is becoming ever closer to Inspector Richard Thornhill and discovering that the living have as many secrets as the dead....
©2012 Andrew Taylor (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
Feather Boy
Summary
“Top flat, Chance House. You can go there.... You are the sort of boy who can fly.” That’s what Edith Sorrell, mysterious resident of Mayfield Rest Home, says when Robert asks her to share a wisdom with him as part of a class project. And even though Robert Nobel, aka Norbert No-Bottle, the perpetually picked-on class squit, is convinced she’s batty, he’s determined to pluck up his courage and go. After all, what does Robert have to lose? His dad is busy with his new family, his mum is always at work, the school bully is making his life miserable, and the class beauty won’t give him the time of day. But Edith is hiding a secret about boarded-up Chance House’s past that’s more complicated than Robert ever imagined. The search for the truth begins in the top-floor flat with a few small feathers. Uncovering it will change both of their lives forever.
©2010 Nicky Singer (P)2012 Listening Library
A Certain Justice (Dramatized)
Summary
Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished criminal lawyer. When she secures the acquittal of a young man, Garry Ashe, from the charge of murdering his aunt, a series of bizarre events is set in motion, starting with her own murder. Adam Dalgliesh, the poet Scotland Yard commander, uncovers the reason for Venetia's death, and its connection with the subsequent murder of her office cleaner. The secrets, locked in the past, which gave rise to these violent events have all come to light when, in a startling climax in the East Anglia marshlands, Garry Ashe is cornered by the police and shot dead.
Includes interview with P.D. James.
©16 9; 1997 P.D. James; 2005 BBC Audiobooks Ltd. (P)1997 P.D. James; 16 9; 2005 BBC Audiobooks Ltd.
Scales of Justice
Summary
The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence - but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish.... Scales of Justice was first published in 1955.
©1955 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
The First Apostle
Summary
An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome. Her distraught husband enlists the help of his closest friend, Chris Bronson, who discovers an ancient inscription on a slab of stone above their fireplace. It translates as ‘Here Lie the Liars.’ But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying to protect? Pursued across Europe, Bronson uncovers a trail of clues that leads him back to the shadowy beginnings of Christianity; to a chalice decorated with mysterious symbols; to a secret code hidden within a scroll. And to a deadly conspiracy which – if revealed – will rock the foundations of our modern world.
©2011 James Becker (P)2011 Random House Audio Go
Guide to Financial Markets (6th edition)
Summary
The definitive guide to why different financial markets exist and how they operate. This edition brings the listener right up to speed with the latest developments in financial instruments and provides a clear and incisive guide to this complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. With chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options, and other derivatives, it looks at why these markets exist, how they work and who trades in them, and it gives a run-down of the factors that affect prices and rates. Business history is littered with disasters that occurred because people involved their firms in financial markets they didn't properly understand. Read this book and you and your company won't be new additions to this list. A fabulous source of reference for anyone wishing to understand financial markets - there is no better guide.
©2014 Marc Levinson (P)2014 Audible Ltd
Black as He's Painted
Summary
When the exuberant president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise. Consequently, on the night of the embassy's reception, the house and grounds are stiff with police. Nevertheless, an assassin does strike, and Alleyn finds he has no shortage of help, from Special Branch to a tribal court - and a small black cat named Lucy Lockett who out-detects them all....
©2015 Ngaio Marsh (P)2016 Hachette