Showing results by narrator "Nicholas Camm" in All Categories

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Self-replicating moon bases and nuclear weapons. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. His colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet - bar none.

A rousing tale of espionage and unsung valor, this is the captivating true story of Vera Atkins, Great Britain's spymistress from the age of 25. With her fierce intelligence, blunt manner, personal courage, and exceptional informants, Vera ran countless missions throughout the 1930s. After rising to the leadership echelon in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by Winston Churchill, she became head of a clandestine army in World War II.

Astrid Webb is missing. The police have found her car crashed near the woods, the driver's door open, the seat spotted with blood. But there's no sign of Astrid herself, a sick woman who rarely left her house, who surely couldn't have left the scene of the accident without help. Her husband Bryan is sure that she's alive - after all, this isn't the first time she's vanished, only to reappear without explanation. But as the days pass, Bryan starts to look like a suspect in his wife's disappearance, perhaps in her murder.

Matt Walker was a chancer; he’d spent his entire profession chasing the next job. His personal life took on a similar mantra. Life was slowly drifting him by. Until one evening, in a hotel bar, following a fortuitous meeting with the quiet and unassuming Julia. She knew of an opportunity that would be the perfect fit for Matt; one he simply couldn’t let go. Not only did the subsequent interview provide him his with dream job; it would also be where he met the love of his life. Matt and Amelia spent each day working hand-in-hand, and every evening in premarital bliss.

When Matt Armstrong learns that his sister has been murdered, he returns to London to find out what happened. Visiting the place where his sister’s corpse was found, Matt struggles to uncover any information. But when he learns that a camera might have been used to record the killing, he becomes a man on a mission. Together with his former girlfriend, Matt chases down every scant lead, finding one dead end after another. Then an anonymous tip changes everything he thought he knew about his sister’s life—and how it ended.

Slab is 350 years into its voyage home when the lights - and everything else - go out. With zero chance of rescue and no possibility that an alternative power source can be invented and deployed in time, most of the 32 million SlabCitizens choose to enter cryo suspension in the fragile hope that if and when they are defrosted, there will still be a slab worth living in.

Rick Fuller is a broken man. For over a year, he has spent his waking hours drinking in the seedy bars of Pattaya, tortured by guilt and tormented by what might have been. That is until the beautiful and enigmatic MI6 agent, Harriet Casey walks into the Cha Cha Saloon with a picture of him on her phone, a computer program stolen from Russian gangsters and a plane ticket back to Manchester, where his old friend and ally Des Cogan is waiting for him.

When 19-year-old Charlene Major is brutally slain in broad daylight, Detective Sergeant Ewan Striker fears a connection to a spate of animal thefts to the north of the city. He knows that some unscrupulous thieves steal pets for bait. But not this time. Striker believes this thief steals to torture and kill. And that can only mean one thing. If this shocking murder is indeed an escalation from animal to human, this man kills for one reason only. Pleasure.

The teenage son of front-running US presidential candidate Senator JE Blackman is found horribly murdered in a Manchester apartment. Blackman knows that if the intimate details of the crime become public, his political ambitions will be in ruins. There can be no arrests, no trial. The Senator is one of the world’s richest men. Wealthy enough to make Washington dance to his tune and demand the CIA solve his problem. Their solution? Find a deniable operative. A man that knows the city and its criminal underworld.

Pre-teen girls are being abducted and their families murdered. When Frank Rogers, ex-DI with the Metropolitan Police, is told that his own daughter is missing, his son a victim, he sets aside his grief to help old colleagues investigate the case. In an unexpected turn of events, the killer contacts the police to say he is willing to talk. But only to Frank. When the body of the first abducted girl is discovered, Frank realises the investigation has become a race against time to save his daughter’s life. Frank must work out how the killer is choosing his victims.

Somebody has slung a stop sign over a solar system, and Slab is heading straight for it. Stopping is not an option. Slab is over a thousand kilometres long, travelling at near lightspeed, and the 32 million humans, NAHs and avatars who inhabit the Slabscape are on a mission; they’re going home and wouldn’t stop even if they could.

Take the most sophisticated AI-designed mind that has ever existed, encase it in over 50 million cubic kilometres of diamond nano-rods and send it off on a 20-thousand-year odyssey towards the centre of the galaxy. Then screw it all up by allowing 32 million humans to go along for the ride.

The next high-octane installment of Robert White's bestselling Rick Fuller series.

Turf-roofed and wooden-built, offering fresh clean air, peace, isolation and the promise of a day's wood-chopping, hiking or snow-clearing amid landscapes of great beauty, the hytte - or wooden cabin home - is a crucial part of the national identity of every Norwegian. In 2016, Robert Ferguson and his wife bought a piece of land high up in the Hardangervidda, the plateau that dominates south-central Norway, and on it they built such a hytte. For Ferguson, the hytte represented the realisation of a dream that first brought him to Norway from England more than 30 years ago.

Whilst detective John Blizzard looks into a series of drug-related deaths, an old nemesis appears who threatens to cloud his judgment. Frustrated with the slow progress of his colleagues’ investigation into the deaths of several youngsters, DCI John Blizzard takes over, determined to catch the drug pushers. In so doing, he stumbles across information that might help solve a murder that occurred when he first joined CID.

Are the defacing of a town’s war memorial and the death of a WWII veteran connected? DCI Jack Harris investigates. The small town of Levton Bridge is beset by a spate of vandalism against its war memorials. Uniformed police believe it is just kids, but DCI Jack Harris is not so sure. And when a local WWII veteran is found brutally murdered, his suspicions are confirmed. With antiwar activists causing trouble in the lead up to Remembrance Sunday, top brass want the case wrapped up to avoid further bad publicity.

Few tears are shed when an ex-boxer and local hard man is found dead in a disused railway signal box. When DCI John Blizzard is called in to investigate, he discovers no shortage of people who would want the bully dead. But getting any of them to come forward proves difficult. Having interrupted the opening day of the public display of a steam engine that DCI Blizzard lovingly helped restore, few are keener than he to see the perpetrator under lock and key.

Todd Blackman’s murderers are dead, and Yunfakh, the latest organised crime gang to come out of the Arab world, have been driven from the streets of Manchester. But MI6 and the CIA are now determined to rid the rest of the world of this powerful new gang by targeting their leader, Abdallah Al-Mufti. With Des wounded, Cartwright tasks Rick to travel to Southern Ireland alone. Posing as an old IRA player, Fuller’s job is to buy a stockpile of weapons left over from the Troubles and sell them to men he hopes will lead him to Al-Mufti.

Striker has a gift. He sees things other cops don’t. Sometimes, it’s a blessing. On other occasions, a curse. When a package containing graphic pictures of a murder taking place is delivered to the mother of the victim, the unconventional and uncompromising detective is called upon to use his special talents to solve the case. With just a small team of specialist officers, including the beautiful psychological profiler DC Felicity Abbott, Striker quickly learns he is dealing with not one but two serial killers who are about to kill one victim each week.

Kevin Palmer is a regular sort of guy, or he was until his life fell apart. His wife, his money, his business and his reputation are all taken away from him. He tries to fight back and ends up in prison. There, he concocts elaborate fantasies to wreak vengeance. He is sent to work in an abattoir, and the final piece of the jigsaw falls into place, with chilling consequences. Then a cruel twist of fate changes everything.