Terry Wale has narrated 47 audiobooks on Listento.it by 7 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is The Ascent of Rum Doodle.
The Tangled Thread
Summary
1788: The bloody revolution in France causes upheaval in the Morland family. Henri-Marie Fitzjames Stuart, bastard offshoot of the Morland family, strives to protect his daughter, Heloise; his mistress, Marie-France; and their son, Morland. To this end, he binds Heloise to a loveless marriage with a Revolutionary, and allies himself with the great Danton. But in the bloodbath of the guillotine and the fall of Danton, Henri-Marie loses his head and Heloise flees to England. She is welcomed with open arms by the family, and in Yorkshire Jemima proudly witnesses three marriages amongst her turbulent brood. At least there may be an heir to Morland Place, but the seeds of disaster have already been sown.
©1987 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2008 Isis Audiobooks Ltd
Dynasty 6: The Long Shadow
Summary
1670: King Charles II's reign has brought peace and prosperity to the Morland family, but James II's ascent to the throne will shatter their restored fortunes. In Yorkshire, Morland Place has flourished during the Restoration, and in London the beautiful and sprited Annunciata, is now Countess of Chelmsford, a wealthy and well-connected woman, intimate with the Royal Family. But storm clouds gather over them all when the reign of James II brings rebellion and discord. Trouble is never far from Annunciata in these turbulent times. Jealousy, betrayal and violent death threaten her children, and for Annunciata herself comes the anguish of love lived in the long shadow of secrecy, a love that can only lead to tragedy.
©1983 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2006 Isis Audiobooks
Dynasty 18: The Abyss
Summary
It is 1833. The industrial age is sweeping through England, and the Stephensons are planning the greatest engineering scheme ever undertaken: a railway line from Liverpool to London. At Morland Place, Nicholas had hoped that his brother, Benedict, had been banished forever, but railway fever has brought Benedict back to Yorkshire as an engineer on the Leeds & Selby line. It is a lonely life and he fears he will never be wealthy enough to marry his new love, Miss Fleetham. Nicholas fears that Benedict is not only a threat to his inheritance but to Morland Place itself, as plans to bring the railway to York will desecrate the estate. The conflict between the brothers mirrors the nation's battle between the old and new, but the Morland feud seems certain to end in tragedy and no-one the victor.
©1995 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2010 Isis Publishing Ltd.
The Reckoning
Summary
The year is 1816. Napoleon has at last been defeated, but victory brings no peace to the English. The cost of war strikes deep into the country - there is a raging inflation, discharged soldiers join the ranks of the unemployed, wages tumble and the bread price soars - and hungry men are easily stirred to protest. Amid this turbulence, Heloise and James stand guard over Morland Place - for its spirit as much as its fortunes - when a tragic accident strikes at the very heart of the family, taking one person on whom they all depend. On top of this, a devastating scandal brings the Morland name into the glare of public notoriety, so that Sophie and Rosamund are forced to learn the difference between real love and its enticing but dangerous illusion.
©1992 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2009 Isis Publishing Ltd
Folly du Jour
Summary
Folies Bergère, Paris, 1927. Joe Sandilands hurries to the assistance of an old friend who has been arrested for murder. In a cell of the Quai des Orfÿvres, he meets with Sir George Jardine, still in the evening dress stained with the blood of the dead man. The only other witness, a blonde who was sharing the victim's box, has vanished. Assistance for Joe comes from an entirely unexpected quarter: Francine, a young usherette, clawing her way into the world of the Paris Music Hall. It is she who becomes Joe's guide through this treacherous place, where the killer is sure to be lurking.
©2007 Barbara Cleverly (P)2008 Soundings
Star Fall
Summary
Antiques expert Rowland Egerton, the darling of daytime TV, has been stabbed to death in his luxurious West London home. The press are going to be all over this one like a nasty rash: the pressure's on Slider for a result, and soon. Egerton's partner, the bulky, granite-faced John Lavender, found the body; did he also do the deed? Or was it a burglary gone wrong? A missing Faberge box and Impressionist painting point that way. But as Slider and his team investigate, none of the facts seem to fit. And it soon becomes clear that the much-loved, charming Mr Egerton wasn't as universally loved, or perhaps as charming, as Slider was first led to believe....
©2014 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2016 Soundings
Game Over
Summary
The murder of any journalist is bound to whip the media into a frenzy. So when ex-BBC correspondent Ed Stonax is found dead, the last thing Detective Inspector Bill Slider needs to complicate his life is the reappearance of an old enemy issuing death threats. Trevor Bates, aka The Needle, is on the loose and trying to kill him. Along with that and a high-profile murder to solve, he must try to find a spare moment to marry Joanna before their baby is born - and to stay alive long enough to see it through.
©2008 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2008 Soundings
The Last Kashmiri Rose
Summary
India, 1922. In Panikhat, 50 miles from Calcutta, the wives of officers in the Bengal Greys have been dying violently, one every year and always in March. All the deaths are bizarre and seem accidental. The only link between them is the small red roses that mysteriously appear on the women’s graves on the anniversaries of their deaths. The first victim perished in a fire, the second was bitten by a cobra, another was thrown off her horse into a ravine, while the fourth drowned. When the fifth, the pretty young wife of Captain Somersham, is found with her wrists cut, the Governor of Bengal refuses to accept a suicide verdict and calls for help from the reluctant Joe Sandilands, currently on secondment to the Bengal police.
©2001 Barbara Cleverly (P)2002 Soundings
The Great Revolt
Summary
June 1381. The rebel armies are massed outside London, determined to overturn both crown and church. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, has been summoned to the monastery at Blackfriars, tasked with solving the murder of his fellow priest, Brother Alberic. Athelstan would rather be protecting his parishioners at St Erconwald's. Instead, he finds himself investigating a royal murder whilst the rebel leaders plot the present king's destruction. What does the fate of the King's great-grandfather, Edward II, have to do with the murder of Brother Alberic more than 50 years later? When he finds his own life under threat, Athelstan discovers that exposing past secrets can lead to present danger.
©2016 Paul Doherty (P)2019 Soundings
Ragtime in Simla
Summary
Simla 1922, and the summer capital of the British Raj is fizzing with the energy of the Jazz Age. Simla is where detective Joe Sandilands is heading as the guest of Sir George Jardine, the Governor of Bengal. But when Joe’s travelling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the governor’s car, he finds himself plunged into a murder investigation. Confronted by the mystery of an identical unsolved killing a year before, Joe realizes that Sir George’s hospitality comes at a high price.
©2002 Barbara Cleverly (P)2003 Soundings
The Book of Fires
Summary
February 1381. A ruthless killer known as the Ignifer - Fire Bringer - is rampaging through London. He appears to be targeting all those involved in the recent trial and conviction of the beautiful Lady Isolda Beaumont, burned at the stake for the murder of her husband. As the late Sir Walter Beaumont was a close friend of the Regent, John of Gaunt orders Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan to investigate. In the dead man’s possession was a copy of the mysterious Book of Fires, containing the secret formula of a devastating weapon. The manuscript has since disappeared, and Gaunt is desperate for it not to fall into the hands of the Upright Men, who are busy plotting the Great Revolt.
©2014 Paul Doherty (P)2018 Soundings
One Under
Summary
A middle-aged man jumps under a tube train at Shepherd's Bush station, and a teenage girl is killed in a hit-and-run in a country lane puzzlingly far from her home on the White City Estate: two unrelated incidents which occupy DCI Bill Slider and his team during a slack period. At least it's a change of speed after the grind of domestics, burglaries and Community Liaison. But links to a cold case - another dead teenager, pulled out of the River Thames - create doubts as to whether they are indeed unrelated. And slowly a trail of corruption and betrayal is uncovered, leading Slider and his firm ever deeper into a morass of horror.
©2015 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (P)2017 Soundings
Strange Images of Death
Summary
Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands is on leave, wending his way through France to the Riviera. En route, he stops off at a chateau in the Lubéron, where his niece is to join her father as one of the guests of a generous yet enigmatic host. But arriving at the chateau, they find that a troubling crime has been committed recently. Joe stays on to allay a rising sense of panic and root out the guilty. But despite his vigilance, first a child disappears; then an artist’s model is murdered in circumstances that eerily recreate a centuries-old crime of passion. As Joe delves ever deeper, a tale of horror unfolds that eventually unmasks the blighted soul behind the spate of recent crimes.
©2010 Barbara Cleverly (P)2010 Soundings
A Pilgrimage to Murder
Summary
Summer 1381. The Great Revolt has been crushed. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, is preparing for a pilgrimage to St Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury to give thanks for the well-being of his congregation after the violent rebellion. But preparations are disrupted when Athelstan is summoned to the scene of a brutal triple murder. One of the victims was the chief clerk of the Secret Chancery of John of Gaunt. Could this be an act of revenge by the Upright Men? At the same time Athelstan is receiving menacing messages from an assassin who calls himself Azrael, the Angel of Death. Could Athelstan's pilgrimage be leading him into a deadly trap?
©2016 Paul Doherty (P)2019 Soundings
Tug of War
Summary
Joe Sandilands has been dispatched to France to stay as the guest of a glamorous French war-widow who is determined that Joe should support her claim that a mysterious shell-shocked soldier is her husband. The problem is that four other claimants have identified him differently. Joe decides to investigate the four claimants and picks his way through a tangle of lies, deceit, and manipulation, uncovering a cleverly concealed murder committed during the war years. When he finally discovers the identity of the soldier, he faces an even greater dilemma: he must not only solve a killing in the past, but avert a tragedy in the future.
©2006 Barbara Cleverly (P)2007 Soundings
The Damascened Blade
Summary
Events that took place on the Northwest Frontier of India in 1910 are resurrected for Joe Sandilands 12 years later. On a welcome break from his duties, he is spending a fortnight with his old army friend James Lindsay, commander of the British army's fort at Gor Khatri on the Afghan border. There is an uneasy peace in operation, but into the delicate situation is injected an ill-assorted group of visitors. After a skirmish that results in the death of a Pathan prince and the taking of hostages, Joe and James are given a week in which to find the killer. Otherwise the frontier is likely to erupt into war. Drawing on all his skills, Joe sets out to find the murderer.
©2003 Barbara Cleverly (P)2003 Soundings
The Bee's Kiss
Summary
It's 1926: Joe Sandilands is back from India enjoying the frantic pleasures of Jazz Age London. But post-war gaiety soon wears off when Scotland Yard asks Joe to conduct a swift enquiry. Dame Beatrice Joliffe, a much-respected member of the British establishment, has been bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. It seems that death dogged the footsteps of Dame Beatrice, and Joe finds himself investigating the apparent suicides of three young women who had been close to her. When his superiors unexpectedly tell him to close the case and surrender the file, Joe is forced to battle on alone against pressure from unseen government forces, through to a shattering solution.
©2005 Barbara Cleverly (P)2006 Soundings
The Herald of Hell
Summary
May 1381. The Great Revolt draws ever nearer. The Upright Men openly roam the streets of London, waiting for the violence to begin. Their mysterious envoy, the Herald of Hell, appears at night, terrifying those who oppose them. But who is he? When his chancery clerk is found hanged in a notorious Southwark brothel, Brother Athelstan is summoned to investigate. In the dead man's possession was a manuscript containing a great secret which he had been striving to decipher. Can he crack the code before the Great Revolt begins?
©2015 Paul Doherty (P)2019 Soundings
Ocean Prize
Summary
When a valuable cargo ship is abandoned in the mid-Atlantic, Captain Barling of the SS Hopeful Enterprise has his own special reasons for wishing to tow it into port. But is he justified in risking men's lives for the sake of his own desires? Shipmate Adam Loder thinks it is nothing but a wild goose chase and chief engineer Jonah Madden is worried about his ailing engines; but Charlie Wilson is hiding a deeper concern...But Barling has more than fearsome gales to contend with as a tenacious rival threatens his chances.
©2006 James Pattinson (P)2006 Soundings
The Straw Men
Summary
January, 1381. As guests of the Regent, John of Gaunt, Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston are attending a mystery play performed by the Straw Men, Gaunt’s personal acting troupe, at St John’s Chapel in the Tower of London when the evening is rudely interrupted by sudden, violent death. Who would have the audacity to murder two of Gaunt’s VIP guests and the wherewithal to strategically position two severed heads on the stage without being noticed? The regent orders Athelstan to find out.
©2012 Paul Doherty (P)2013 Soundings