Showing results by author "Charles" in All Categories

Twenty tales of terror and suspense, brought to you by sinister storyteller Vincent Price. Horror legend Vincent Price presents an anthology of eerie, unsettling tales with a devilish twist - some purportedly based on his own adventures, others narrated by him in his own inimitable style.

London. A city drowning in fog. Amid that fog, a man with no name dies above a strange junkshop. Threads of mist and intrigue weave around a court case with no resolution, linking great country houses with the lowest slum in the city, mingling the high-born with a boy who sweeps the filthy streets, enshrouding devious plots and sudden murder, bringing together two extraordinary women – Lady Dedlock and Esther Summerson - who seem to have nothing whatsoever in common but who will find themselves inextricably linked.

Long sources of mystery, imagination, and inspiration, the myths and history of the ancient Mediterranean have given rise to artistic, religious, cultural, and intellectual traditions that span the centuries. In this unique and comprehensive introduction to the region's three major civilizations, Egypt, Greece, and Rome draws a fascinating picture of the deep links between the cultures across the Mediterranean and explores the ways in which these civilizations continue to be influential to this day.

Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic - first published in 1841 - shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds.

A young woman begs Sherlock Holmes to help find her missing fiancé, but the great detective makes an uncharacteristic mistake. Then Sherlock’s daughter, Lucy James, takes on a missing-person case of her own, but she must also keep a vicious criminal away from Becky, Lucy’s 10-year-old sister-in-law. Little Becky soon becomes dangerously involved in both cases. No one foresees the devastating news that Sherlock Holmes has been murdered.

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distil vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. Miyamoto Musashi becomes a reluctant hero to a host of people whose lives he has touched and by whom he has been touched. Inevitably, he has to pit his skill against the naked blade of his greatest rival.

Dombey and Son is vintage Dickens and explores the classic themes of betrayal, cruelty and deceit. Dombey's dysfunctional relationships are painted against a backdrop of social unrest in industrialized London, which is populated by a host of fascinating and memorable secondary characters. The complete and unabridged novel is brought spectacularly to life by veteran reader David Timson.

A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed, and love. The 58 characters are presented with remarkable clarity by David Timson.

Some agents have all the fun. Others save the world. Bob Howard is an IT expert and occasional field agent for The Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's Secret Service that deals with occult threats. Dressed (grudgingly) in a tux and sent to the Caribbean, he must infiltrate a millionaire's yacht in order to prevent him violating a treaty that will start a war with an ancient underwater race.

Once upon a time, a boy from a noble family fell in love with a girl from the gutter. It went as badly as you’d expect. Seventeen years later, Susan Lazarus is a renowned detective, and Templeton Lane is a jewel thief. She’s tried to arrest him, and she’s tried to shoot him. They’ve never tried to talk. Then Templeton is accused of a vicious double murder. Now there’s a manhunt out for him, the ports are watched, and even his best friends have turned their backs. If he can’t clear his name, he’ll hang.

A selection of 17 classic stories of horror and the supernatural by some of the greatest writers in the genre. This compilation includes a mix of well-known classics by authors such as Charles Dickens and M. R. James, alongside several unjustly overlooked gems by less familiar names who were hugely popular and prolific in their day.

January, 1649. After seven years of fighting in the bloodiest war in Britain’s history, Parliament faced a problem: what to do with a defeated king who refused to surrender? Parliamentarians resolved to do the unthinkable, to disregard the Divine Right of Kings and hold Charles I to account for the suffering and slaughter endured by his people. On a winter’s day outside Whitehall, the king of England was executed. When the king’s son, Charles II, was restored to the throne, he set about enacting a deadly wave of retribution against all those responsible for his father’s death.

Europe is still littered with the darkest secrets of the Cold War. And the most deadly revelation of them all is about to be made…Hard-up Russia expert Dr Sam Gaddis finally has a lead for a book that could set his career back on track. He has staggering new information about an unknown sixth member of the infamous Cambridge spy ring – a man who has evaded detection for his entire life

In a comprehensive and beautifully crafted first person narrative, David Copperfield recalls key stages, memories, and incidents of his life from infancy to maturity. Scenes, adventures, and characters are summoned to the narrator's remembrance so vividly that they are rendered with the vitality of the present moment.

Declaring he needs to clear his conscience, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses that he killed his cousin five years earlier during the Great War. When Inspector Ian Rutledge presses for details, the man evades his questions, revealing only that he hails from a village east of London. With little information and no body to open an official inquiry, Rutledge begins to look into the case on his own. Less than two weeks later, the alleged killer’s body is found floating in the Thames, a bullet in the back of his head.

For six years, Alec Milius has escaped the past. In Madrid, he has rebuilt his life but remains in exile and in danger. Slightly older, and much wiser, than the young spy who first impressed MI6, he has kept his fatal attraction to secrets. So when a prominent politician mysteriously disappears, Alec is lured back into the spying game. Only this time he operates without the protection of any official agency, isolated and expendable, with nobody to turn to if things go wrong. And they soon do.

Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.

Professor James Moriarty (Monaghan) is back for a gripping new adventure that finds him joining forces with his bitter rival, Sherlock Holmes (LaMarr). Moriarty tracks down the woman he loves but discovers that she is trapped in the web of a shadowy cabal of evil that’s growing stronger every day. To fight it, Moriarty must face Lady Milverton (Mirren), a ruthless mastermind whose blackmail poisons the highest levels of power. When he learns that his nemesis Sherlock Holmes is also in Milverton’s grip, the two must set their animosity aside to stop an escalating threat of world war.

Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle's chaotic secondhand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else. Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan - charming, cultured, oddly attractive - steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.