Audio - Crime 2002

File Updated: 13/09/2004

Tangled Web UK: New Audio - Crime Titles 2002

Boris Akunin The Winter Queen Published March 2004 by Orion Audio at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0-75286 590 0
Read by William Hootkins
CD VERSION - Complete and unabridged
Moscow 1876. A young law student commits suicide in broad daylight in Moscow’s Alexander Gardens. But this is no ordinary death, for the young man was the son of an influential industrialist, and has left a considerable fortune.
Erast Fandorin, a hotheaded new recruit to the Criminal Investigation Department, is assigned to the case. Brilliant, young and sophisticated, Fandorin embarks on an investigation that will take him from the palatial mansions of Moscow to the seedy backstreets of London in his hunt for the conspirators behind this mysterious death.
Bonus Track: This CD set contains a bonus track not included in the tape edition. Listen to an exclusive interview in which Paul Blezard talks to the author about the nature of the detective story, the genesis of Erast Fandorin, and - as a translator from Japanese to Russian himself- how he feels about having his own work translated. (This is on CD 6, track 12, but you may like to listen to it before the story.)
`Think Tolstoy writing James Bond with the logical rigour of Sherlock Holmes. A hoot.’ Guardian
William Hootkins is an established actor with a wide range of distinguished film, television and theatre credits. He has appeared in such films as Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and A River Runs Through It, as well as the television series Cheers, Black Adder II and Poirot. His theatre work includes Death of a Salesman and A Man for All Seasons, and he recently appeared alongside Helen Mirren in Orpheus Descending.
6 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs 40 mins

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by Boris Akunin at Amazon.co.uk

David Ambrose A Memory of Demons Published January 2004 by ISIS at Ł18.99 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 2 Cassettes Running Time: Null
About The Author
David Ambrose began his distinguished career screen-writing for Orson Wells. He read law at Oxford and has worked internationally in theatre, television and film.

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by David Ambrose at Amazon.co.uk

Meg Elizabeth Atkins Private View Published February 2004 by Soundings at Ł16.99 Buy direct from Soundings: order number (UK) 0191 253 4155 N.B. P&P Ł2.50 or Ł3.50 for two or more titles
Read by Christopher Scott
A DCI Sheldon Hunter mystery
Chatfield. The murder of a local art gallery owner and the theft of a painting have stumped DCI Sheldon Hunter. After months of enquiry there are no suspects, no murder weapon, no painting and, indeed, no artist. The identity of the painter whose work disappeared was as much a mystery to the police as to the art world at large. The case is filed - unsolved.
Four years later, Hunter receives anonymous tips alleging the involvement of the Saddler family in the death. His interest piqued, he decides to take a look. Apart from being pillars of the community, the Saddlers are unremarkable . . . but as Hunter digs around he discovers that their son, Ian, is missing and his mystery caller claims it has something to do with the artist Fayne. Can Hunter get to the truth before another death?
Since leaving Drama School, Christopher Scott has worked in theatre throughout the British Isles.
It is perhaps for his radio work that he is best known, having been involved in such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Forsythe Chronicles, as well as numerous Afternoon and Saturday Night Theatre, plays for BBC Radio Drama.
He was also heavily involved with the recording of the complete authorised King James version of the Bible.
5 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 7 hrs
About The Author
Meg Elizabeth Atkins has won many plaudits for her fiction on both sides of the Atlantic and reviewers have compared her to Elizabeth Bowen and Barbara Pym for the elegance of her writing. She lives with her husband in a North Yorkshire village where she teaches creative writing and also writes non-fiction books such as Haunted Warwickshire.

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by Meg Elizabeth Atkins at Amazon.co.uk

Dan Brown Digital Fortress Published September 2004 by Orion Audio at Ł12.99 ISBN: 0-75286 891 8
Read by Bruce Sabath
When the National Security Agency’s invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls in its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant, beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage - not by guns or bombs, but by a code so complex that, if released, would cripple US intelligence.
Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves ...
‘Pure genius ... Dan Brown has to be one of the best, smartest, and most accomplished writers in the country’ Nelson Demille
Bruce Sabath’s acting career started in 1997. He has performed on many New York stages, had lead roles in several independent films, performed in a national tour, played ‘the Scot’ in an unforgettable production of Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish Play’ and acted under the direction of the amazing Sidney Lumet.
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs 40 mins
About The Author
Dan Brown is the bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and Deception Point. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. He lives with his wife in New England.

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by Dan Brown at Amazon.co.uk

Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code Published March 2004 by Orion Audio at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0-75286 654 0
Read by Jeff Harding
CD VERSION - Complete and unabridged
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent phone call while on business in Paris: the curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Langdon suspects the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion - a centuries-old secret society - and has sacrificed his life to protect the Priory’s most sacred trust. But it now appears that Opus Dei, a clandestine sect that has long plotted to seize the Priory’s secret, has made its move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, the Priory’s secret - and a devestating historical truth - will be lost for ever …
Jeff Harding was born in Massachusetts, U.S.A.
He has worked extensively in television, with recent roles in The Fast Show and Trail of Guilt. Jeff also played Father Buzz Cagney in Father Ted. Jeff has appeared in feature films including Tomorrow Never Dies.
6 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs 35 mins
About The Author
Dan Brown is the bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and Deception Point. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. He lives with his wife in New England.

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by Dan Brown at Amazon.co.uk

Lee Child The Enemy Published May 2004 by Soundings at Ł20.99 Buy direct from Soundings: order number (UK) 0191 253 4155 N.B. P&P Ł2.50 or Ł3.50 for two or more titles
Read by Jeff Harding
You’re in the army now, son...
New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The Cold War is ending. Soon America won’t have any enemies left. The army won’t have anybody to fight. Things are going to change. Jack Reacher is the Military Police duty officer on a base in North Carolina when he takes a call reporting a dead soldier in a motel. Reacher tells the local cops to handle it - heart attacks happen all the time. But the dead man turns out to have been a two-star general who should have been in Europe. When Reacher goes to the general’s house to break the news, he finds another corpse: the general’s wife. What is he dealing with here? The echoes of the old world... or the first shocks of the new? Lee Child’s latest thriller turns back the clock to Jack Reacher’s army days. For the first time we meet a young Reacher in his dogtags and starched uniform, imposing army discipline.
‘Nobody does it better’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Child is a consummate thriller writer: his prose is trim but descriptive, his plots believable, fresh and positively airtight, and here he shows himself master of misdirection.’ Time Out
Jeff Harding was born in Massachusetts, U.S.A.
He has worked extensively in television, with recent roles in The Fast Show and Trail of Guilt. Jeff also played Father Buzz Cagney in Father Ted. Jeff has appeared in feature films including Tomorrow Never Dies.
12 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 15 hrs 30 mins
About The Author
Lee Child was born in the industrial Midlands. He studied law, and worked for many years in commercial television. He has recently moved with his wife and daughter from Cumbria to New York State. His first two Reacher novels, Killing Floor and Die Trying, were both published by Bantam Press. Killing Floor was recently awarded the Anthony Award in America for the best first novel.

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by Lee Child at Amazon.co.uk

Lee Child Persuader Published July 2004 by HarperCollins Audio at Ł13.99 ISBN: 0-00-7164254
Read by Kerry Shale
Never forgive, never forget. That’s Jack Reacher’s standard operating procedure. And Francis Xavier Quinn was the worst guy he had ever met. He had done truly unforgivable things. So Reacher was glad to know he was dead. Until the day he saw him, alive and well, riding in a limousine outside Boston’s Symphony Hall.
Never apologize. Never explain. When Reacher witnesses a brutal attempt to kidnap a terrified young student on a New England campus, he takes the law into his own hands. That’s his way, after all. Only this time, a cop dies, and Reacher doesn’t stick around to explain. Has he lost his sense of right and wrong? Just because this time it’s personal?
This heartstopping new novel, brings back Lee Child’s much-loved hero, Jack Reacher, at his pragmatic and uncompromising best.
Kerry Shale is an award-winning reader whose credits include such films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Labyrinth, as well as a range of Audiobooks and a number of documentary voice-overs for the BBC, Granada and the Discovery Channel.
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs Abridged by Kati Nicholl
About The Author
Lee Child was born in the industrial Midlands. He studied law, and worked for many years in commercial television. He has recently moved with his wife and daughter from Cumbria to New York State. His first two Reacher novels, Killing Floor and Die Trying, were both published by Bantam Press. Killing Floor was recently awarded the Anthony Award in America for the best first novel.

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by Lee Child at Amazon.co.uk

Agatha Christie Destination Unknown Published June 2004 by HarperCollins Audio at Ł13.99 ISBN: 0-00-718143 4
Read by Emilia Fox
When a number- of leading scientists disappear without trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed?
One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan plane crash.
Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die...
Emilia Fox has appeared in a variety of theatre, film and television productions. Her television appearances include Pride and Prejudice, Stephen Poliakoff's Shooting the Past, and a starring role in Rebecca.
Emilia Fox has "one of the sexiest recording voices in the world" according to The Independent
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 6 hrs
About The Author
Agatha Christie at work

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. She wrote 80 crime mysteries and collections, and saw her work translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Her enduring success, enhanced by many film and TV adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and the unequalled ingenuity of her plots.
Agatha Christie says: 'I was born in Devonshire, and had a very happy childhood with practically no lessons and lots of time to roam about the garden and imagine things. It was my mother who told me to write. She was a woman of great charm and great character, and was always convinced that her children could do anything! I was in bed with a bad cold and she said, "You'd better write a short story. Nonsense, don't say you can't! Of course you can!"
'For some years I enjoyed myself very much writing stories of unrelieved gloom where most of the characters died. Also a good deal of poetry and a novel with an impossible number of characters in it. Then I thought it would be fun to try and write a detective story. It was an exciting day when The Mysterious Affair at Styles was accepted and published. I was working as a dispenser at a Red Cross Hospital during the First World War when I wrote it.
'As for my tastes, I enjoy my food, hate the taste of any kind of alcohol, have tried and tried to like smoking, but can't manage it. I adore flowers, am crazy about the sea, love the theatre, but am bored to death by the talkies (and am very stupid at following them), loathe wireless and all loud noises, dislike living in cities. I do a lot of travelling, mostly in the Near East, and have a great love of the desert.'
In 1950 Agatha Christie celebrated the publication of her fiftieth detective novel. Messages of congratulation came to her from many eminent people, including Mr C. R. Attlee, then Prime Minister, who wrote: "I admire and delight in the ingenuity of Agatha Christie's mind and in her capacity to keep a secret until she is ready to divulge it. And I admire, also, another of her qualities, one that is not always possessed by those who produce detective stories, her ability clearly and simply to write the English language."
Born in Torquay, she was encouraged to write by Eden Phillpotts, the famous Devonshire playwright; her first book was rejected by several publishers before it was published in 1920. The wife of a distinguished archaeologist (Professor Max Mallowan of Lodon University), she assisted him in his excavations in Iraq, where he made remarkable discoveries. They lived in a Georgian house overlooking the River Dart.

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by Agatha Christie at Amazon.co.uk

Agatha Christie The Murder at the Vicarage Published February 2004 by HarperCollins Audio at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0-00-7179448
Read by Joan Hickson
CD VERSION - Complete and unabridged

‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a service!’

It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later. From seven potential murderers, Miss Marple must seek out the suspect who has both motive and opportunity.
‘Joan Hickson - you can’t beat her, you know. So enjoy this not-so-fluffy old lady doing her Marple thing. Genius.’ Time Out
‘The acknowledged queen of detective fiction.’ Observer
`When she really hits her stride, as she does here, she is hard to surpass.’ Saturday Review of Literature
Joan Hickson played Miss Marple in the popular BBC television series.
6 Cassettes Running Time: 7 hrs 20 mins
About The Author
Agatha Christie at work

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by Agatha Christie at Amazon.co.uk

Agatha Christie A Murder Is Announced Published February 2004 by HarperCollins Audio at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0-00-17943X
Read by Joan Hickson
CD VERSION - Complete and unabridged
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’
A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out...
‘Joan Hickson - you can’t beat her, you know. So enjoy this not-so-fluffy old lady doing her Marple thing. Genius.’ Time Out
‘A super-smooth Christie - three neat murders in an English village, [and] an assortment of her famous red herrings, all beautifully marinaded.’ New York Times Book Review
Joan Hickson played Miss Marple in the popular BBC television series.
6 Cassettes Running Time: 7 hrs 48 mins
About The Author
Agatha Christie at work

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by Agatha Christie at Amazon.co.uk

Agatha Christie Crooked House Published February 2004 by HarperCollins Audio at Ł12.99 ISBN: 0-00-7170475
Read by Hugh Fraser
Complete and unabridged
The Leonides appeared to be a close, happy family - but once the patriarch of the family, Astrides Leonides, is murdered, the relations between the surviving members prove to be as ramshackle as the sprawling house they inhabit.
In the aftermath of the death, the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house intensifies each family member’s suspicions ... until the veneer of the loving family is tarnished by grief, anguish, and something altogether more lethal…
‘Writing Crooked Horse was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best.’ Agatha Christie
Hugh Fraser plays Captain Hastings in the popular TV series
4 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 5 hrs 45 mins
About The Author
Agatha Christie at work

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by Agatha Christie at Amazon.co.uk