Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

Innovation is not always as innovative as it may seem. This is the story of how old ideas that were mocked or ignored for centuries are now storming back to the cutting edge of science and technology, informing the way we lead our lives. This is the story of Lamarck and the modern-day epigeneticist whose research vindicated his mocked 200-year-old theory of evolution; of the return of cavalry use in the war in Afghanistan; of Tesla's bringing back the electric car; and of the cognitive scientists who made breakthroughs by turning to ancient Greek philosophy.

With her new billionaire boss in town, Sophie's determined to swap the No-Jobs she meets on Tinder for her very own Steve Jobs. But will looking like a million dollars be enough to kick-start a Fifty Shades adventure? A ring in his pocket and dressed to kill, Calum's planning to get down on one knee. Though if Mia doesn't say 'yes', he's not sure he'll ever get back up. Julie's got a surprise for Mark - though it's something she's not even sure she wants.

As Germany goes to war, the Nazis tighten their terrifying grip. Paranoia in the capital is intensified by a rigidly enforced blackout that plunges the city into oppressive darkness every night, as the bleak winter sun sets. When a young woman is found brutally murdered, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is under immense pressure to solve the case, swiftly. Treated with suspicion by his superiors for his failure to join the Nazi Party, Schenke walks a perilous line—for disloyalty is a death sentence.

Fifteen year old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting rather mysteriously. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more.

As a rousing Strauss piece is reaching its crescendo in Maningpool Civic Hall, the talented yet obnoxious conductor Sir Noel Grampian is shot dead in full view of the Municipal Orchestra and the audience. It was no secret that he had many enemies - musicians and music critics among them - but to be killed mid-flow suggests an act of the coldest calculation. Told through the letters and documents sent by DI Alan Hope to his wife as he puzzles through the dauntingly vast pool of suspects and scant physical evidence in the case.

Mammals you never knew existed will enter your world. Birds hidden in treetops will shed their cloak of anonymity. With a single movement of your hand you can make reptiles appear before you. Butterflies you never saw before will bring joy to every sunny day. Creatures of the darkness will enter your consciousness. And as you take on new techniques and a little new equipment, you will discover new creatures and, with them, new areas of yourself that had gone dormant. Once put to use, they wake up and start working again.

Something appalling happened in the wood. When Gabriel Ash and his dog come to her aid, she thinks she's safe. But this is Norbold, where things aren't always as they seem. Detective Chief Inspector Gorman thinks this is his worst nightmare: a predatory paedophile who's prepared to kill rather than be taken. Constable Hazel Best thinks she's helping both the Somers family and her friend Ash, but her tendency to follow her heart rather than her orders is about to get her into trouble again.

Akulov is full of loathing for the country that built and then broke him. Unable to shake the guilt of his past, Akulov has made it his business to seek out those who prey upon the innocent. The name Wolf Six is legendary - whispered by those who know it with fear. But when Akulov accidentally thwarts the armed robbery of a Chicago Bank, he pits himself against both the Russian Bratva and the CIA, setting into motion a spiralling sequence of events which will bring his past back to haunt him, and potentially turn his future to ashes…

Poignant, deeply funny, and beautifully written, Serious Sweet is about two decent, damaged people trying to make moral choices in an immoral world, ready to sacrifice what's left of themselves for honesty and for a chance at tenderness. As Jon and Meg navigate the sweet and serious heart of London - passing through twenty-four hours that will change them both forever - they tell an unusual and moving love story.

Billie-Rose's bloodstained body is found in the kitchen of her ground-floor flat. She's been strangled to death, there's a deep laceration to her upper thigh, and a wooden chess-piece grasped tightly in her hand. Daubed on the wall in Billie-Rose's own blood is a strange symbol: a bishop's mitre. All Detective Jack MacIntosh can think is: He's back. Four years earlier, four young women were also strangled to death in their own homes, the same deep wound to the thigh, the same weird symbol scrawled on the wall. The work of the killer they call the Bishop. Is he back to kill again?

The call comes in the early hours. Human remains have been discovered in a suitcase, dumped on the muddy banks of the River Thames. Detective Jack MacIntosh races to the scene. The suitcase contains a human torso, two arms and two legs. It's the body of a young girl. But where is her head? Then a skull is found embedded in the silt of the riverbed. But it doesn't belong to the body in the case. As the river offers up more of its gruesome secrets, Jack uncovers a tangled web of shocking secrets stretching back twenty years.

Being perceived as a threat or, worse, hunted as food makes an animal attack a unique ordeal. Suddenly you’re helpless, at its mercy. When an animal strikes it is lightning fast, determined and can’t be reasoned with. Often brutally violent, such an attack can leave horrific injuries, both physical and emotional that endure long after the encounter. In Bite Club, we meet brave people from around the world who have come face to face with sharks or other deadly predators and lived to tell the tale.

When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls. Online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the accusations of sexual abuse and murder that were levelled at Crystal before he died. But as Scott begins to ask questions and rake over old graves, some startling inconsistencies emerge.

Eighty-one-year-old Eddie Wakefield is found brutally murdered at the nursing home where he lives. Crudely carved into his flesh—while he was still alive—is the number fifteen. Detective Jack MacIntosh and his team are determined to track down the ruthless killer of this frail elderly man. But the investigation is leading nowhere. Then the second body is discovered. The victim was stabbed to death in their own home. Again, the number fifteen is etched into the dead man's flesh.

Ten-year-old Ethan Clarke's disappearance gripped the nation. Just as his parents are starting to piece together a life 'after Ethan', their world is ripped apart once more when their daughter, Robin, disappears in almost identical circumstances. They've lost two children within a decade...and now doubts about their innocence are setting in.

October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a light shining like a beacon to the enemy aircraft overhead, violating the strict blackout regulations. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman – and she's been strangled with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women in the mid-1930s but has never been caught. Is there a connection?

With Africa's last elephants dying under the poachers' guns, Kenya rancher and former SAS officer Ian MacAdam leads a commando squad against them. Pursuing the poachers through jungled mountains and searing deserts he battles thirst, solitude, terror and lethal animals, only to find that the poachers have kidnapped a young archaeologist, Rebecca Hecht, whom he once loved and bitterly lost.

Zoe knows that it wasn't really her fault. Of course it wasn't. But if she'd just grasped harder, run faster, lunged quicker, she might have saved him. And Edward doesn't really blame her, though his bitter words at the time still haunt her, and he can no more take them back than she can halt the car that killed their son. Two years on, every day is a tragedy. Edward knows they should take healing steps together, but he's tired of being shut out. For Zoe, it just seems easier to let grief lead the way.

1957. A catastrophe occurs at the pharmaceutical lab in Coventry where 16-year-old Wilf is working for the summer. A catastrophe that needs to be covered up at all costs. 2017. Phiney is shocked by the death of her grandfather, Wilf, who has jumped from a railway bridge at a Coventry station. Journalist Mat Torrington is the only witness. Left in utter disbelief, with a swarm of unanswered questions, Phiney, Mat and Wilf's wife, Dora, begin their own enquiries into Wilf's death.

For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays were special. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other. It was the day that Dorothea Cassidy was strangled... As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea’s last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases – a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care – and even her close family have their secrets to hide.