Audio - Crime 2002

File Updated: 13/09/2004

Tangled Web UK: New Audio - Crime Titles 2002

Ian Rankin Watchman Published January 2004 by Orion Audio at Ł13.00 ISBN: 0-75286 035 6
Read by Roger Allam
Bombs are exploding in the streets of London, but life seems to have planted more subtle booby-traps for Miles Flint. Miles is a spy. His job is to watch and to listen, then to report back to his superiors, nothing more. The job, offering glimpses into the most private lives of his victims, appeals to Miles. He doesn’t lust after promotion, and he doesn’t want action. He wants, just for once, not to botch a case. Having lost one suspect - with horrific consequences - Miles becomes too involved with another, a young Irishwoman. His marriage seems ready to crumble to dust. So does his home. He is being pursued by `The Hell-Raiser of Fleet Street’ reporter Jim Stevens, who also has his sights set on MP Harry Sizewell.
Meanwhile, Miles, pursuing dreams of beetles and moles, is given one last chance for redemption - a trip to Belfast, which quickly becomes a flight of terror, murder and shocking discoveries. But can the voyeur survive in a world of violent action?
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs 30 mins Abridged by Katrin WilliaMS Produced by Elspeth Santa Clara
About The Author
In His Own Words…

Born in Cardenden, Fife, Scotland In 1960. Attended local comprehensive school, then went on to University of Edinburgh. MA in English Literature (specialising in US Literature). Then started studying towards a PhD in the Modern Scottish Novel, but wrote my own stuff instead. Early "successes" were with poetry and the short story. One story raged out of control and became, my first novel, The Flood.
Married in 1986 and moved to London. Worked as a secretary at the National Folktale Centre, then as a journalist (rising to acting editor) on monthly music magazine hi-fi Review. Dropped out in 1990 and moved to the French countryside. This pastoral idyll failed to stop me writing dark, dark fictions.
Was elected a Hawthornden Fellow in 1988. Won Chandler-Fullbright Award in 1992. Won CWA Short Story Dagger in 1994 (or was it '95?); same story shortlisted for 1995 Anthony award. Won the Short Story 'Dagger' again in 1996, and celebrated by moving back to Scotland.
Two sons, Jack and Kit. Er.....that's it.

Ian Rankin is the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh.
A contributor to BBC2’s ‘Newsnight Review’, he also presented his own TV series ‘Ian Rankin’s Evil Thoughts’, on Channel 4 in 2002. His most recent novel, Resurrection Men, was a Sunday Times Number One bestseller in both hardback and paperback. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh.

at ABE

by Ian Rankin at Amazon.co.uk

Alexander McCall Smith Portuguese Irregular Verbs Published August 2004 by timewarner Audio at Ł14.99 ISBN: 1 4055 0060 3
Read by Hugh Laurie
CD Version
In Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, Alexander McCall Smith has created a superbly comic creation whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and Inspecteur Clouseau's hapless gaucherie.
In the first of these tall stories, we follow von Igelfeld from his student days, and his early fieldwork in search of ancient Irish obscenities, to an aching infatuation with a dentist fatale, ending up with a Venetian sojourn that has distinct, and troubling, echoes of Thomas Mann.
Hugh Laurie is a comedian and writer/ and one of Britain’s best-known film and television actors. On television, he has starred in Black Adder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which he co-wrote with Stephen Fry, and Jeeves and Wooster. His films include Peter's Friends, Sense And Sensibility, Maybe Baby and The Man In The Iron Mask.
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 4 hrs Produced by Garrick Hagon
About The Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over forty books, including Heavenly Date and, most recently, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, both works of fiction. His collection of African stories, Children of Wax, received high critical acclaim and has been the subject of an award-winning film.

at ABE

by Alexander McCall Smith at Amazon.co.uk

Alexander McCall Smith The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs Published August 2004 by timewarner Audio at Ł14.99
Read by Hugh Laurie
CD Version
In the sequel to Portuguese Irregular Verbs, our hero. Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, is the unlikely choice to address veterinarians in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, is dogged by dachshunds, becomes embroiled with that notorious Coptic schismatic, the Duke of Johannesburg (and his victim the Patriarch of Alexandria), and finally ends up being mobbed as the star attraction on a Mediterranean cruise ship.
Hugh Laurie is a comedian and writer/ and one of Britain’s best-known film and television actors. On television, he has starred in Black Adder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which he co-wrote with Stephen Fry, and Jeeves and Wooster. His films include Peter's Friends, Sense And Sensibility, Maybe Baby and The Man In The Iron Mask.
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 4 hrs Produced by Garrick Hagon
About The Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over forty books, including Heavenly Date and, most recently, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, both works of fiction. His collection of African stories, Children of Wax, received high critical acclaim and has been the subject of an award-winning film.

at ABE

by Alexander McCall Smith at Amazon.co.uk

Alexander McCall Smith At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances Published August 2004 by timewarner Audio at Ł14.99 ISBN: 1 4055 0064 6
Read by Hugh Laurie
CD Version
The third novel in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs trilogy sees Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld suffering the slings of academic intrigue as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, and the arrows of outrageous fortune in an eventful Columbian adventure. Between trips, von Igelfeld returns to his beloved Regensburg only to discover that while he has been away his murine colleagues have been at play.
Hugh Laurie is a comedian and writer/ and one of Britain’s best-known film and television actors. On television, he has starred in Black Adder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which he co-wrote with Stephen Fry, and Jeeves and Wooster. His films include Peter's Friends, Sense And Sensibility, Maybe Baby and The Man In The Iron Mask.
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 4 hrs Produced by Garrick Hagon
About The Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over forty books, including Heavenly Date and, most recently, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, both works of fiction. His collection of African stories, Children of Wax, received high critical acclaim and has been the subject of an award-winning film.

at ABE

by Alexander McCall Smith at Amazon.co.uk

Alexander McCall Smith In the Company of Cheerful Ladies Published September 2004 by timewarner Audio at Ł14.99 ISBN: 1 4055 0040 9
Read by Adjoa Andoh
CD Version
Precious Ramotswe is now married to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. The agency is busy and life is good, until Mma Ramotswe's contentment is interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between Mma Makutsi and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well, but who admires her greatly . . .
'There is something almost divinely appealing about the way Alexander McCall Smith writes about daily life in Botswana ... it is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
Adjoa Andoh ... reads like a dream' Guardian
Adjoa Andoh has appeared in many productions for both television and theatre, including Casualty and EastEnders, and has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has extensive radio experience with Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, and was in the Radio 4 drama Citizens for two and a half years. She is the reader for all the titles in 'The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series.
6 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs Abridged by Kati Nicholl Directed by Garrick Hagon
About The Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over forty books, including Heavenly Date and, most recently, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, both works of fiction. His collection of African stories, Children of Wax, received high critical acclaim and has been the subject of an award-winning film.

at ABE

by Alexander McCall Smith at Amazon.co.uk

Terence Strong Cold Monday Published June 2004 by ISIS at Ł22.99 Buy direct from ISIS: freephone order number (UK) 0800 731 5637 or click on the Order button to visit their website N.B. P&P Ł2.50 or Ł3.50 for two or more titles
Read by Peter Wickham
One man’s tortured past could hold the key to Europe’s future .. .
Haunted by the brutal killing of his UN interpreter wife in Bosnia, ex-SAS operative Ed Coltrane is consumed with the need to hunt down her murderers. Drinking too much and spending too much on his search, his life is going into meltdown. Just as it seems he can fall no further, a former colleague informs him that one of his wife’s killers is in London, as a guest of the British government. Unofficial figures in the corridors of power would like to see this man disappear, and they’d like Ed Coltrane to accept the contract. What Coltrane doesn’t know, in accepting to commit state-sanctioned murder, is that an elaborate game of bluff and double-bluff is being played throughout Europe. Certain high-ranking officials have a vested interest in his failure and removal .. .
Peter Wickham was bitten early by the travel bug, coming to England from New Zealand as a child. He has worked all over England and Wales in repertory and is determined to work more in Scotland! Acting and directing aboard the Q.E11 took him from Singapore to Venezuela, and a short season in Istanbul followed. In 1990 he directed and appeared in a revue on a tour of Czechoslovakia.
Many TV appearances started in Dixon of Dock Green (during its later years!) and include most recently A Sense of Guilt. But after theatre his favourite medium is sound; he has been heard many, many times on radio, in plays, reading poetry, short stories and serials.
14 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 15 hrs
About The Author
Terence Strong spend his childhood in post-war south London, playing in the blitzed bomb-sites or running the gauntlet of the brown-uniformed keepers in Battersea Park. These were the stark and evocative settings for his wild and vivid imagination before the days of early black and white television.
(In his thriller WHITE VIPER, he has given his heroine George Savage a flat at his old home in No 3 Banbury Street)
Despite encouragement from his parents, he was slow to start reading. The first book he bought for himself was The Adventures of Robin Hood, based on the Walt Disney movie starring Richard Todd.

`I thought I went by myself to buy it.' he recounts. `It was an awfully big adventure. I didn't know that my dear old mum was following at a discreet distance - just in case I was abducted or something. I've no doubts where I've got my imagination from. God knows what the neighbours made of her stalking me down the street!'

He discovered the childish joys of Alison Uttley's Sam Pig at the ridiculously late age of nine, but advanced quickly on to Mark Twain. The adventures of Tom and Huck struck a chord with young Terry Strong and his own less prosaic exploits in the bomb-flattened metropolis. And barely had he begun to be enthralled by the Old Wild West in R.M. Ballantyne's A Dog Called Crusoe and Gene Autry, than he stumbled upon the Biggles books of Captain W.E. Johns.

`I went all over the world with those characters,' he recalls. `I read over forty of the books and they opened my eyes to travel, geography, people and different cultures. In fact today I like to quip that I write Biggles books for grown-ups, but I'm only half joking. I love to take my readers to a different part of the world with each book when I can and show them things they'd probably never even see as ordinary tourists.'

Looking back he sees this time as providing the foundations for his career as a thriller writer. He discovered Buchan, Bulldog Drummond, Blackshirt, Raffles and progressed on to Ambler, Hemingway and the newly-published Ian Fleming. By the time he was fourteen he had failed his 11-plus but then won the top award for English in his year amongst all twenty-six branches of the Clarke's College private grammar schools. Already his heart was set on being a foreign correspondent and thriller writer. At sixteen he completed his first full-length novel, entitled Sweet Smell of Intrigue.
Having decided it was not up to scratch, he buried it away and concentrated on finding his first job. At the time further studies and the thoughts of university had no appeal; he was anxious to make his mark on the big wide world. For some reason at that time he had abandoned serious thoughts about journalism (`It may have been the thoughts of reporting tedious council meetings for the local rag,' he now admits. `For me it was front-line war correspondent or nothing!') and set his sights on something more practical: advertising copywriting.

`My career adviser at school reacted as though I'd said I wanted to be a street-walker. In those days it was somehow thought to be a slightly tawdry profession. It was suggested that in order to make good use of my English I became a solicitor's clerk. So that's what I did. I joined a firm in the City and hated every second of it!'

Within six months he'd left for the lowest rung in the advertising world, working in the only position available as post boy. A year later he'd graduated to assistant production manager and was contributing articles to a client newspaper for pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. Specimens of this work helped win him the job of assistant editor on a trade newspaper for the John Menzies newsagents and bookselling chain, News Trade Weekly. Eighteen months later the editor retired and Terence took over the chair.

`At that time I do believe I was the youngest editor in Fleet Street,' he says. `At twenty I was looking after a 60,000 copy weekly. But even better, it was the world of magazines and books, I had the opportunity to interview many of my literary heroes like Francis Clifford, John Braine, Gavin Lyall, James Leasor and Hammond Innes.'

Strong then wrote his second novel North of Capricorn. Robert Hale saw it and asked to look at it again once he'd halved the length. And although he went through the whole exercise, including paying for the entire MS to be typed, he decided it wasn't good enough and never did resubmit it.
He was then invited to become the publicity manager for Four Square Paperbacks which then published the great Harold Robbins. For the first time he became fascinated with modern military history after promoting the film-tie in with Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day about the D-Day invasion. But two years later he was fired - although technically he resigned - for failing to meet the chairman's decree for a prompt nine-thirty start.
There followed a seven year period of self employment, ranging from freelance journalism and photography to advertising and public relations. During that period he took up modern wargaming as a hobby interest and studied all aspects of warfare in the air, at sea and on land, and special forces operations in particular which brought him into contact with former members of the SAS.
In 1977 he joined a public relations company, McKenzie, Newton & Nicholson, the latter of whom had just been murdered by the Provisional IRA in Belfast. Mr Nicholson had apparently been mistaken for the managing director of one of their client companies. Strathern Audio was a state-of the-art audio company set up in West Belfast with government investment.
After just nine months Strong was made redundant and spent three months writing Whisper Who Dares (his first thriller which was set in Northern Ireland and featured, for the first time in fiction, SAS operations against the Provisional IRA) before taking up his next appointment.
Yet it was to be two years later, after the Iranian Embassy siege, before he finally submitted the manuscript. It was published in 1982 and is now in its l8th impression. His second book The Fifth Hostage about a rescue mission to Iran was written in just six months. It was planned in detail with the help of former SAS personnel, detailed pilot maps and masses of desk research, His Iranian advisors congratulated him on the authenticity of his creation, but Strong was not happy with such second-and third-hand methods of research.
Since then he has managed to visit the majority of his locations, This was later to lead to him being mistaken for a mercenary in The Gambia, West Africa, when a second coup was expected; living in a snow hole with the Royal Marines at -40C in Norway (after which he took up cross-country skiing as a hobby); bluffing his way into the closed desert society of the Sultanate of Oman (where he learned and hated scuba diving) and to civil war-torn Mozambique in the heart of Renamo bandit country.

'Before I went I wanted to be able to pick up any type of weapon and fire it. Through contacts I managed to get familiar with everything from revolvers and automatics to rifles and sub-machine guns. But when I got there all I had available was an AK47 Kalashnikov without a magazine - a glorified club! I was mortified.'

Travels have taken him from the United States, Europe and Russia in the Cold War days to Africa, the Middle East and most recently (for White Viper) South America, including Colombia and the remote and dangerous coca-growing regions of the Amazonias.
In 1986 a major heroin-smuggling operation involving the IRA formed the basis for Dragonplague, although Terence Strong had a high-level meeting at New Scotland Yard with the Drug and Anti-Terrorist Squads and Customs before putting pen to paper. Shortly after the book was published, the real-life cover operation - a major abattoir and meat packing business in central Eire- went into voluntary liquidation and several East End criminals were arrested. However an Irish High Court judge took out a libel action against Strong and his publishers over the book which was finally settled out of court.
Later Strong was impersonated by a Yorkshireman passing himself off as a former Para and SAS officer. `He bought a lot of books and signed them on my behalf,' Strong recalls. `Good for sales, but not for my reputation. He was a one for the ladies, borrowed a lot of money from them and then disappeared with it.' However the man was finally brought `to book' and sentenced.
For his bestseller The Tick Tock Man, Strong attended the Army's terrorist bomb disposal school in England and personally toured the front-line EOD bases in Northern Ireland with `Top Cat', the senior bomb disposal commander in the province. Elements of both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries agreed to give their views on the political situation which Strong attempted to portray fairly and accurately in his fictional `peace talks' - which proved the be devastatingly prophetic.
His list of contacts who have become friends and acquaintances today cover the entire spectrum of thriller writing: police and customs specialists, hostage negotiators, bodyguards and contract soldiers, mercenaries, former members of the CIA and British intelligence services, private investigators, lawyers, all arms of the military, and professional assassins.
It's all come a long way from the childish imagination fuelled by the bomb-sites of post-war London and running from the keepers in Battersea Park.

Publishing History,
Terence Strong's first thriller Whisper Who Dares was published as a paperback original in 1982 and was the first ever novel to go behind the scenes with the SAS who had just come into the public eye.
Yet the manuscript had been completed in handwritten form (the way the author still writes his first and second drafts) in 1978 and lay discarded in a drawer awaiting typing. Following the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980, he dusted it off and sent copies to four publishers. Hodder & Stoughton snapped it up for special publication in Coronet paperback.
Published at the height of the Falklands War, it became an instant bestseller and is now in its l8th edition and still selling. Being a paperback original, there were few press reviews, although a reviewer on the Glasgow Evening Times was quick to declare: `This is the best thriller I've read in a long time!'
Sales of Terence Strong's next eight thrillers were to exceed a million copies in the UK alone.
A second paperback original followed swiftly, The Fifth Hostage, detailing a daring SAS mission into the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini which the author planned after reading nine books on the country and enlisting the help of former SAS personnel to plot the mission with total authenticity.
'One gets to feel this really is what the inner workings of the SAS are like' said The Bookseller, later reporting it at the No.4 Top Ten Position. It made No.6 according to the Daily Express, No.3 in Publishing News and No.1 itself in CTN, the newsagents trade magazine.
With Conflict of Lions Terence Strong further developed the 'hands-on' research that was to become his trade mark by visiting West Africa and travelling to the upper reaches of the river Gambia to collect material for a classic tale of guerrilla warfare and counter-revolution.
`No one can cram in the action like Strong' decided the Glasgow Evening Times and the Gloucester Citizen commented: 'The great thing about Terence Strong is his talent for frightening credibility. Everything in this story could happen - and probably has, somewhere.'
The accidental discovery of real-life links between heroin-trafficking and the Provisional IRA led to the author's first non-SAS story Dragonplague although he retained a fallen ex-military hero. Due to its topicality it was published simultaneously in hardback and paperback editions.
Over fifty press, TV and radio interviews resulted from the revelations including a front page lead in Sunday Independent and a sensationalised expose in the Sunday Sport. The Sunday Express review was more measured: 'Mr Strong's story races along, action-crammed with violence and sex, yet he manages to inject his story with all the tragedy of heroin abuse as well as the brutal cynicism of the villains behind the racket. His extensive research is frightening.' And 'A superior action story' decided the Peterborough Evening Telegraph. `Sort of paces which keeps the pages turning at a fast clip’ said Tim Heald in The Times.
By the time he returned to his SAS theme in That Last Mountain - combining a classic espionage and love story with high adventure in the icy Scandanavian wilderness - his following of fans amongst press reviewers was growing strongly.
'Breathless entertainment with a wryly realistic finish' claimed Matthew Coady in The Guardian and Christopher Wordsworth in The Observer declared it to be 'An expert miasma of treachery and suspicion building to a thrilling climax.'
Others were equally impressed: 'Rating AA+' (Publishing News); 'A writer of the there's-no-substitute for-experience school' (Daily Telegraph); 'Packed with tension and drama' (Northern Echo); 'A punishing a nerve-shredding chase across the treacherous and icy wilderness' (Liverpool Echo); 'Anyone who knows the Arctic will find his action hard to fault. He is equally strong on characterisation with heroes as flawed as they are in real life' (Guernsey Evening Press) and 'A thrilling, compelling novel' (Huddersfield Daily Examiner).
From ice and snow, Strong next swept his readers off to the desert of Oman in Sons Of Heaven, swapping skis for scuba-gear and flippers, linking piracy by Iranian terrorists in the Arabian Gulf with nerve-chewing hostage negotiations in London.
'Must be contender for Best Thriller of 1990' declared the Guernsey Evening Press. 'His research is always so meticulous that the fiction comes to life - you really feel as if it could happen' said the Western Morning News and the Liverpool Daily Post agreed: 'Meticulous detail is woven in neatly but never takes the pace out of a tight plot with a realistic finish.'
'Belongs to the action-man school of writing backed up hands on research,' said The Times and the Sunday Telegraph acclaimed it as 'Well-plotted and genuinely exciting.' Others went along: 'A most powerful up-to-the-minute thriller' (Manchester Evening News) and 'Terrific!' (Oxford Mail). It was back to Africa with This Angry Land, but this time to war-torn Mozambique in the south-east of the continent. The author scored a double whammy with this tale with Karen Smyth Oracle declaring: `Superbly written, this is an enthralling and poignant read'
Its accurate portrayal of contemporary events and life in the country inspired an Oxford professor to use the book as the basis of a 10,000 word address to academic experts in refugee studies from around the world at a meeting in New York.
Yet the Peterborough Evening Telegraph obviously saw another side of the story: 'A full bore blood, thunder and romance epic', as did the Western Morning News: `When the bullets begin to fly the non-stop action takes off with a vengeance. It's an easy read because of the strength of the writing, the compulsion of the tale and a savage but surprising climax.' And `Highlights the situation better than any television documentary ever could’ said the Newport Argus.
And it certainly won over the reviewer in Cambridgeshire Pride Magazine: `Strong writes a crisper story than Colin Forbes, has more depth than Alistair MacLean or Jack Higgins and with every book is proving himself the master of the big-scale action adventure story. This is as powerful as the very best of Wilbur Smith.' Stalking Horse followed, exploring the jumpy, nerve-shredding life of a man under deep cover to penetrate a terrorist organisation and combining it with spectacular action behind the lines in Iraq during the run up to the Gulf War.
More reviewers raved: `Reading this meant sleepless nights. I just couldn't lay it down. Great stuff' (Sunderland Echo); `When such a powerful plot combines with such sharply drawn characters the result is inevitable - an action packed page turner which defies the reader to put it down' (Yorkshire Evening Post); `I held my breath through this terrific thriller. Splendidly researched, excitingly written and terrifyingly prophetic. A must for a movie' (Dorset Evening Echo).
The Western Mail reviewed Stalking Horse alongside John Le Carre's The Night Manager: `Terence Strong is rather less well known than John Le Carre and yet of the two books I found Stalking Horse the most satisfying. Mr Strong's narrative is faster and more gripping without losing authenticity. It is a thoroughbred of a tale that stays the distance. While Mr Le Carre's is a well-constructed story, I found his 'baddies' less convincing than those in Stalking Horse.' While the national Today’s verdict by Sarah Broadhurst was: `This tale of daring and downright cunning culminates in a thrilling climax. For your action novel and authentic thriller, Terence Strong is hard to beat.'
The author moved to Heinemann-Mandarin for his last book The Tick Tock Man, which plunged the reader into the unfamiliar world of terrorist bomb disposal in Belfast and London.
WH Smith selected the hardback for one of its twenty-four special promotions in 1994 and it outsold the lot, leading to its choice as the `Hero' Paperback of the Month the following year. John Menzies picked it as Book of the Week and it was chosen to head a Readers Digest abridged edition.
It sold 11,000 in hardback (the author complains he hasn't even got a first edition himself!) and sold a 110,000 paperbacks in the first printing.
'Yet again an edge-of the-chair thriller with the chilling grip of authenticity,' said the Sunday Independent.

at ABE

by Terence Strong at Amazon.co.uk