Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and nine other writers from the legendary Detection Club collaborate in this fiendishly clever but forgotten crime novel first published 80 years ago. Inspector Rudge does not encounter many cases of murder in the sleepy seaside town of Whynmouth. But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a stab wound to the chest, the Inspector's investigation immediately comes up against several obstacles. The vicar, whose boat the body was found in, is clearly withholding information, and the victim's niece has disappeared. There is clearly more to this case than meets the eye – even the identity of the victim is called into doubt. Inspector Rudge begins to wonder just how many people have contributed to this extraordinary crime and whether he will ever unravel it… In 1931, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and ten other crime writers from the newly-formed ‘Detection Club’ collaborated in publishing a unique crime novel. In a literary game of consequences, each author would write one chapter, leaving G.K. Chesterton to write a typically paradoxical prologue and Anthony Berkeley to tie up all the loose ends. In addition, each of the authors provided their own solution in a sealed envelope, all of which appeared at the end of the book, with Agatha Christie’s ingenious conclusion acknowledged at the time to be ‘enough to make the book worth buying on its own’. The authors of this novel are: G. K. Chesterton, Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley.

The Floating Admiral

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . The Mind's Eye by Håkan Nesser is the first novel in the stunning Van Veeteren series. Janek Mitter stumbles into his bathroom one morning after a night of heavy drinking, to find his beautiful young wife, Eva, floating dead in the bath. She has been brutally murdered. Yet even during his trial Mitter cannot summon a single memory of attacking Eva, nor a clue as to who could have killed her if he had not. Only once he has been convicted and locked away in an asylum for the criminally insane does he have a snatch of insight – but is it too late? Drawing a blank after exhaustive interviews, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren remains convinced that something, or someone, in the dead woman's life has caused these tragic events. But the reasons for her speedy remarriage have died with her. And as he delves even deeper, Van Veeteren realizes that the past never stops haunting the present . . . The Mind's Eye is followed by the tensely gripping Borkmann's Point.

The Van Veeteren series

The Mind's Eye

Puccini’s swansong has a claim to being the last great popular opera. Its melodies have enchanted audiences since its posthumous premiere in 1926, two years after Puccini’s death. It involves a chilling story of love and cruelty, an intriguing cast of characters against the exotic backdrop of Imperial China, magnificent choruses and ensembles, and dazzling orchestration in an exotic score that comprises a string of remarkable arias – among which the great tenor aria ‘Nessun dorma’ is the jewel. It is more than Puccini’s last opera: it is the last word, in every sense, on Italian opera.

Opera Explained – Turandot

Massenet’s Werther combines a deeply tender story with music of beauty and eloquence. One act alone contains two of the greatest arias in the repertoire: the mezzo-soprano aria ‘Va! Laisse couler mes larmes’ and the tenor’s ‘Pourquoi me rèveiller’. In their sentimental power and melodic richness these arias encapsulate the qualities that account for the universal popularity of this great work.

Opera Explained – Werther

Charles Dickens was a major contributor to the Victorian romantic revival of Christmas traditions. With their heart, humour and good morals, Dickens’s Christmas stories have made the author’s name synonymous with the season. Here we present four charming novellas to complete his series that began with A Christmas Carol, with echoes of sleigh bells throughout.

Timeless Classics

Christmas Stories

George MacDonald, described by W.H. Auden as ‘one of the most remarkable writers of the 19th century’, was valued in his own time as an original thinker and spiritual guide. Of all his writing it is the fairy tales that have retained their fascination, and this collection includes all 11 stories, including The Light Princess, The Golden Key and The Wise Woman. The fairy tales feature the stock characters of traditional tales – fairies both good and bad, and children undertaking precarious journeys. Often adopting paradox and nonsense as Lewis Carroll did, the stories invite adults to deploy the same open-mindedness as children. In MacDonald’s own words, ‘I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or 50, or 75.’

Fairy Tales

The Fable of the Bees – a satirical poem, prose discussion, three essays and six dialogues completed in 1729 – exposes human vices but defends them as a necessity within a wealthy society. Mandeville’s bees thrive until they start living by honesty and virtue… then they are impoverished. Mandeville did not play by the rules: he satirised the sins of society but also ridiculed the widespread hypocrisy of deploring these sins whilst reaping their benefits. He and his work were attacked for the rest of the century. The wicked bees’ comeuppance is not for their vices – society’s accepted moral code – but, instead, for the folly of denying them. There is no judgement on whether a rich society is superior to a poor one; Mandeville simply analyses, with incorrigible playfulness, the status quo as he sees it. The fascination of his arguments and the ensuing controversy have caught and influenced philosophers and thinkers ever since. Includes Mandeville’s complete text (both Parts 1 and 2), in a multi-voice recording headed by the outstanding David Timson.

The Fable of the Bees

In The Final Problem, perhaps the greatest of the short stories of Sherlock Holmes, the English detective encounters his most formidable rival, Professor Moriarty. ‘The Napoleon of Crime’ is how Holmes describes his adversary to his faithful companion, Dr Watson, as they move to the ultimate confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls. Also in this collection is the intriguing mystery of the disappearing bride in The Noble Bachelor and two threats from the past in Gloria Scott and The Resident Patient.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Volume VI

Father Brown is an eccentric priest with his own particular ways of dealing with crime. David Timson, having completed the whole of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon – a remarkable achievement – turns his hand to the genial but certainly not innocent priest! This collection contains a group of stories from the Innocence of Father Brown, told unabridged.

The Innocence of Father Brown – Volume 1

When Sherlock Holmes met his demise in The Adventure of the Final Problem, published in 1893, the distress of the unsuspecting reading public was profound. For years fans showed no signs of letting Sherlock Holmes lie down and die. Eventually, Doyle saw fit to continue his Holmes’ canon and wrote a series of thirteen short stories – The Return of Sherlock Holmes – published in 1905. The series begins, inevitably, with the shock re-appearance of the master detective in The Adventure of the Empty House. This, plus three others are included in Naxos AudioBooks’ first volume of Doyle’s continuation of the famous bloodhound-of-a-genius, read by master storyteller David Timson. Though he has been away, it seems that Holmes has lost none of his remarkable qualities.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes – Volume I

In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr Watson. What was the mystery of the engineer’s thumb? What was behind the disappearance of the race horse? Why did masked royalty walk up to see Holmes in Baker Street? These and other puzzles are solved by this bloodhound of a genius.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Volume II

Further adventures by the master of observation and deduction as faithfully recounted by his companion and his greatest admirer, Dr Watson. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax and The Adventure of the Dying Detective are among the stories.

Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes: His Last Bow

Charles Dickens was a master of the macabre. His stories of madness, murder and revenge, often imbued with a sympathetic moral undertone, have continued to thrill and chill readers ever since they were written. Here then are 15 tales that display the full range of Dickens’s Gothic talents. The Signalman, perhaps the most well-known, is a chilling story about a mysterious figure and its deathly omen; The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain shows the consequences for those who make deals with the dead; The Portrait-Painter's Story follows an artist who paints a non-living person by memory; and Captain Murderer and the Devil's Bargain, a bedtime story from Dickens’s own childhood, tells of a bloodthirsty man who kills his brides and bakes them into pies. Among others, the collection also includes A Christmas Carol, The Baron of Grogzwig from The Pickwick Papers, and The Ghost in the Bride’s Chamber, a novella co-written with Wilkie Collins.

Ghost Stories

Don Giovanni has long been regarded as Mozart’s supreme theatrical achievement. The subject seems unpromising – the last day in the life of the notorious womaniser Don Juan – but the skill of the librettist allied to the genius of Mozart at the very peak of his powers has created a work which is not only highly entertaining but reflects an incredible understanding of the human condition.

Opera Explained – Don Giovanni

Here are the six final stories from The Innocence of Father Brown relating the crime-solving adventures of a rather unconventional detective. Having accumulated wisdom and empathy from years of listening to the dark confessions of his parishioners, Father Brown is able to solve mysteries in a flash that confound all others. Here is an eccentric and loveable character that will appeal to fans of the legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. The stories are engagingly read by David Timson. The Wrong Shape, The Sins of Prince Saradine, The Hammer of God, The Eye of Apollo, The Sign of the Broken Sword and The Three Tools of Death.

The Innocence of Father Brown – Volume 2

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's third title in the Van Veeteren series is the dark and compelling The Return. An unmissable hospital appointment is looming for Inspector Van Veeteren when a corpse is found rolled in a rotting carpet by a young child playing in a local beauty spot. Missing head and limbs, the torso is too badly decomposed for forensic identification – bar one crucial detail . . . Circumstantial evidence soon points to a local man, a double murderer who disappeared nine months before, shortly after being released on parole; a local hero turned monster after being convicted of killing two women over a span of three decades. Recuperating after an operation, Van Veeteren is nevertheless directing investigations from his hospital bed, for he is convinced that only the innocence of this new victim can be the motive for his murder. But the two women have been dead for long enough for any evidence to have died with them . . . And is he simply on the wrong track completely? The Return is followed by the fourth title in the series, Woman with Birthmark.

The Return

In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising. As the political forum moved from Edwardian smoking rooms to an increasingly democratic Westminster, the people of Britain experimented with extreme ideas as they struggled to answer the question ‘How should we live?’ Socialism? Fascism? Feminism? Meanwhile, fads such as eugenics, vegetarianism and nudism were gripping the nation, while the popularity of the music hall soared. It was also a time that witnessed the birth of the media as we know it today and the beginnings of the welfare state. Beyond trenches, flappers and Spitfires, this is a story of strange cults and economic madness, of revolutionaries and heroic inventors, sexual experiments and raucous stage heroines. From organic food to drugs, nightclubs and celebrities to package holidays, crooked bankers to sleazy politicians, the echoes of today's Britain ring from almost every page.

The Making of Modern Britain

The Roman historian Tacitus was a successful politician who eventually became Governor of the province of Asia. He is thought to have died around AD 120 and benefitted from the patronage of the Flavian Emperors. The Histories, of which only just over four out of 14 books survive, covers the years following the assassination of the Emperor Nero: Rome was plunged into further civil war with the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69), which culminated in the accession of Vespasian, the first of the Flavians. Notwithstanding his proximity to the ruling family, Tacitus regretted Rome’s development from republic to empire – which is especially evident in his Annals. The Histories is a fascinating close-up account of a critical period in Roman history.

The Histories

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Chief Inspector Van Veeteren delves into a dark family mystery in the sixth book in Håkan Nesser's Van Veeteren series, The Unlucky Lottery. Four friends celebrate winning the lottery. Just hours later, one of them – Waldemar Leverkuhn – is found in his home, stabbed to death. With Chief Inspector Van Veeteren on sabbatical, working in a second hand bookshop, the case is assigned to Inspector Münster. But when another member of the lottery group disappears, as well as Leverkuhn's neighbour, Münster appeals to Van Veeteren for assistance. Soon Münster will find himself interviewing the Leverkuhn family, including the eldest – Irene – a resident of a psychiatric clinic. And as he delves deeper into the family's history, he will discover dark secrets and startling twists, which not only threaten the clarity of the case – but also his life . . . The Unlucky Lottery is followed by the seventh book in the series, Hour of the Wolf.

The Unlucky Lottery

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has always maintained its initial appeal to both the general public and scholars alike. Its sheer scale is daunting, encompassing over a millennium of history, covering not merely the Western Empire from the days of the early emperors to its extinction in AD 476, but also the Eastern Empire, which lasted for another thousand years until the Turks vanquished it in 1453. But Gibbon’s style, part historical fact and part literature, is enticing, and the sheer honesty of the man, who endeavours to be scrupulously impartial in his presentation, endears him to the reader. In this recording, David Timson incorporates the most salient of Gibbon’s footnotes. In Volume IV (Chapters XXXVII–XLVI), Gibbon explores the state of the Roman provinces after the dissolution of the Western Empire, and examines the reasons for its fall ? not excluding its ‘immoderate greatness’. He then moves to the Empire in the East and its rule under Justinian (527?565), whose formidable leadership saw the re-fortification of Constantinople and the frontiers of the Eastern Empire. However, dangerous times remain ahead as the Persians make attempts to siege Constantinople. Gibbon ends with the state of the Eastern Empire in the sixth century and its weaknesses after a long war.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume IV

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Woman with Birthmark by Håkan Nesser is the fourth title in his atmospheric Van Veeteren series. A young woman shivers in the December cold as her mother's body is laid to rest in a cemetery. The only thing that warms her is the thought of the revenge she will soon take . . . Then a middle-aged man is killed at his home, shot twice in the chest and twice below the belt. He had recently received a series of bizarre phone calls where an old song is played down the line – evoking an eerie sense of both familiarity and unease. Before the police can find the culprit, a second man is killed in the same way. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team must dig far back into each man's past – but with few clues at each crime scene, can they find the killer before anyone else dies? Woman with Birthmark is followed by the fifth book in the series, The Inspector and Silence.

Woman with Birthmark

In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr Watson. What was the horror of The Speckled Band or the secret behind the curious legacy for men of red hair? These and other puzzles are solved by this bloodhound of a genius.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Volume I

The Sherlock Holmes series read in unabridged form, by David Timson for Naxos AudioBooks is widely regarded as one of the finest. Here, Timson brings his remarkable performance skills to one of Doyle’s full-length novels. Holmes and his faithful Dr Watson are summoned to a country house by a coded message. They arrive too late to save a life and then pursue the trail which leads to the unmasking of the murderer.

The Valley of Fear

This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser’s finest achievement. The first epic poem in modern English, The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error…

The Faerie Queene

Sir Francis Bacon, sometimes known as the father of empiricism, was one of the major political figures of his day, his career culminating as Lord Chancellor under King James I in 1617. Bacon wrote widely, but it is the Essays (published in its third edition in 1625, the year before his death) for which he is best known. Deftly written and often displaying a cutting wit, they cover a wide range of subjects including death, love, marriage, ambition and atheism. Bacon described the Essays as ‘recreations of my other studies’, and clearly drew on the ideas of earlier thinkers and writers, particularly Aristotle and Michel de Montaigne. The work had much influence on later generations and on the development of the English essay.

Essays

In this, the first prose history in European civilisation, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority and style. Perhaps most famously, the book tells the heroic tale of the Greeks’ resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, King of Persia. Here are not only the great battles – Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis – but also penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of destiny at work.

Histories

John Galsworthy’s magnificent trilogy of power and passion chronicles the wealthy Forsyte family. As the disintegrating values of the Victorian era progress to World War I and the political uncertainty of the 1930s, the family’s material and emotional struggles are set within the dwindling status of the affluent middle-classes. Infused with warmth, compassion and engaging characters, the complete Chronicles are divided into three volumes, containing nine books and four interludes in total. In Volume 1, The Forsyte Saga, Soames Forsyte – the ‘man of property’ – is desperate to uphold values and conventions that are becoming out of step with the time. His most prized possession is his strikingly beautiful wife Irene, but she is profoundly unhappy; the bitterness only builds, and the events that follow are set to ripple through the next generation of Forsytes. The Forsyte Saga contains Book 1: The Man of Property, Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte, Book 2: In Chancery, Interlude: Awakening and Book 3: To Let.

The Forsyte Chronicles

The Forsyte Chronicles, Vol. 1: The Forsyte Saga

Four more stories from the master detective. The mystery of the missing suitor is solved and Sherlock Holmes raises his whip… an Indian pot stands in the shadows of a Colonel’s death… serious affairs of state and international diplomacy are threatened by a theft… and surely evil intent lies behind threats in a hidden house. The cool observations and swift action of Sherlock Holmes resolves all.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Volume IV

Dr Watson comments ‘The stage lost a fine actor’ when Holmes chose to devote his formidable talents to the solution of crime. two of these stories, The Reigate Squire and The Adventure of Beryl Coronet, Holmes demonstrates his thespian powers as he unravels the mysteries. In the first he explains a rural murder while in the second, Holmes’ timely intervention prevents something of a national – even royal – scandal. The Boscombe Valley Mystery takes Holmes and Watson once again to the English countryside, but the famous detective uncovers old Australian animosities to get to the root of the problem. The Yellow Face, which concludes the selection, is one of the most fascinating in the whole canon, raising some key social issues of the time.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Volume V

Rossini’s comic operas, like The Barber of Seville, are better known than his tragedies though he wrote in fact many more tragedies than comedies. One of them, his last, William Tell, is actually credited with launching the whole age of Grand Opéra. Tancredi is an early work – indeed his first smash hit – and it established his international fame. It has all the youthful verve of the comedies allied to a sure dramatic sense, and several of the arias, including the famous ‘Di tanti palpiti’, are magnificent examples of the sort of virtuoso vocal writing that earns the title ‘bel canto’: ‘beautiful singing’, first and last.

Opera Explained – Tancredi

"Monteverdi’s Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera. Notable for its precise orchestration and powerful drama it was a groundbreaking work. It concerns the legend of Orpheus, the demi-god whose music had the power to conquer the forces of Hell and to bring his wife back, briefly, to life. The extracts used in this introduction are from Naxos’s full recording; it uses authentic period instruments, which serve to evoke the early Baroque period of the opera’s composition."

Opera Explained – Orfeo

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has always maintained its initial appeal to both the general public and scholars alike. Its sheer scale is daunting, encompassing over a millennium of history, covering not merely the Western Empire from the days of the early emperors to its extinction in AD 476, but also the Eastern Empire, which lasted for another thousand years until the Turks vanquished it in 1453. But Gibbon’s style, part historical fact and part literature, is enticing, and the sheer honesty of the man, who endeavours to be scrupulously impartial in his presentation, endears him to the reader. In this recording, David Timson incorporates the most salient of Gibbon’s footnotes. In Volume V (Chapters XLVII?LVI), Gibbon further explores the influence of Christianity on the fall of the Roman Empire. He looks at the growth of the worship of Christian images and the resulting persecution by Leo III, emperor of the East. The conflict is intensified as a split develops between the Eastern and Western churches, a weakness that encourages attacks from Lombardy. Gibbon then moves to the foundation of the Moslem religion and the attempts of the Arabs to besiege Constantinople.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume V

Die Fledermaus is one of the few operatic works to which the phrase ‘never a dull moment’ can be truthfully applied. From the explosive opening of the famous overture – reminiscent of a volley of champagne corks – through the surging energy of the ‘Fledermaus Waltz’ and the many comic numbers, of which the accelerando trio is the finest, up to such huge concerted numbers as the ‘Duidu’ finale to Act II, this is an operetta which almost incarnates nostalgia. Thomson Smillie and David Timson infuse their exploration of Die Fledermaus with as much life as the operetta itself. The most rewarding and memorable extracts are included, and the whole piece is tantalisingly introduced – a trip to see it has to be the next step! Timson begins, “‘Nostalgia’, as the saying goes, ‘may not be what it used to be,’ but thank goodness we still have Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus!”

Opera Explained – Die Fledermaus

Il trovatore has been ruthlessly parodied. It is a tale of murder and mayhem, burned babies, roasted hags, would-be nuns, strolling minstrels and bad baritones. And indeed the libretto does call for a willing suspension of disbelief. The reward is in the music, a score as prodigally melodic as only the mature Verdi could write: the ‘Anvil’ Chorus, the ‘Miserere’ scene, two great tenor arias, a beautiful baritone aria – a richness without embarrassment.

Opera Explained – Il trovatore

Verdi’s Falstaff repays careful study with real pleasure. It is opera’s happiest irony that the great Italian master should cap a career – distinguished for its blood-and-thunder tragic masterpieces – with the greatest comic opera in the Italian repertory. The genius of Shakespeare is harnessed (in a miracle of compression) by master-librettist Boito to give the eighty-year-old Verdi a superb libretto, on which he lavished more wonderful tunes than most composers manage in a lifetime. Falstaff is the last great Italian comic opera and a worthy end to the tradition.

Opera Explained – Falstaff

The first of Maurice Leblanc’s collections about his devilish, debonair rogue, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar presents eight dazzling short stories that display some of Lupin’s greatest thefts and escapes. Lupin robs from within prison, leaves its walls with ease, steals priceless diamonds from the rich and outwits the greatest detective of all: Sherlock Holmes. Witty, cunning and taunting, Lupin is a genius on the wrong side of the law, although his noble code of ethics and Robin-Hood-like ways often see him use his talents for good.

Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar

La sonnambula was written by Bellini as a vehicle for two of the supreme singers of his age and accordingly is a fine example of the school we call bel canto, where beauty of voice and the virtuosity of the singers is integral to conveying the emotions in the soul of the composer. The fact that Bellini was one of the great melodists, writing long, beautiful vocal lines, that he was a master orchestrator and that he could write stirringly for the chorus all conspire to make La sonnambula an extremely enjoyable example of Italian opera in its prime.

Opera Explained – La sonnambula

"Once again Conan Doyle presents a series of cases which baffle the police, but are no match for Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion Dr Watson. In Black Peter the peace of rural Sussex is disturbed by the discovery of a seafarer’s body pinned to the wall of his hut with a harpoon. In The Golden Pince-Nez a young man is found dead clutching a pair of spectacles – yet he had perfect sight. Who is the short-sighted murderer? In The Missing Three-Quarter Holmes takes on a novel case when a rugby player goes missing the day before a major University match. A woman tied to a chair; her husband clubbed to death with a poker, a case of robbery with violence? But all is not what it seems in the case of The Abbey Grange. The series ends with The Second Stain where a top secret document that could lead Britain into war goes missing. Holmes is put to the test to save his country as well as his reputation."

The Return of Sherlock Holmes – Volume III

Ancient Egypt and the war with Ethiopia is the setting for Verdi’s grandest opera. It is the story of the love between Rhadames, the Egyptian general and Aida, an Ethiopian slave, and the jealousy of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt. It was written in 1871 to a commission from the Khedive of Egypt to inaugurate the new opera house in Cairo. Aida generally is considered one of the most spectacular of Verdi’s operas. But Thomson Smillie, in his fascinating introduction to the work, presented by actor David Timson, says it is, more accurately ‘a chamber opera with a grand march through the middle of it’. The historic background – how and why it came to be composed – is clearly explained. This is followed by the plot, the characters, and the principal arias and musical moments – a perfect way of getting to know the work.

Opera Explained – Aida

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's The Inspector and Silence is the fifth gripping crime novel in the Van Veeteren series. In the heart of summer, the country swelters in a fug of heat. In the beautiful forested lake-town of Sorbinowo, Sergeant Merwin Kluuge's tranquil existence is shattered when he receives a phone call from an anonymous woman. She tells him that a girl has gone missing from the summer camp of the mysterious The Pure Life, a religious sect buried deep in the woods. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is recruited to help solve the mystery. But Van Veeteren's investigations at The Pure Life go nowhere fast. The strange priest-like figure who leads the sect – Oscar Yellineck – refuses even to admit anyone is missing. Things soon take a sinister turn, however, when a young girl's body is discovered in the woods, raped and strangled; and Yellineck himself disappears. Yet even in the face of these new horrors, the remaining members of the sect refuse to co-operate with Van Veeteren, remaining largely silent. As the body count rises, a media frenzy descends upon the town and the pressure to find the monster behind the murders weighs heavily on the investigative team. Finally Van Veeteren realizes that to solve this disturbing case, faced with silence and with few clues to follow, he has only his intuition to rely on . . . The Inspector and Silence is followed by the sixth book in the series, The Unlucky Lottery.

The Inspector and Silence

‘In this hapless state I looked myself over and saw that I was now no bird, but an ass...’ In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society. The Golden Ass is considered the only novel to survive the Roman period, and the earliest novel to survive complete in the Western literary tradition. It is brimming with slapstick humour and sexual escapades, and foreshadows later works by Boccaccio, Rabelais, Cervantes and Chaucer, upon whom it was a direct influence.

The Golden Ass

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's astonishingly successful Van Veeteren series continues with the eighth book, The Weeping Girl. Winnie Maas died because she changed her mind . . . A community is left reeling after a teacher – Arnold Maager – is convicted of murdering his female pupil Winnie Maas. It seems the girl had been pregnant with Maager's child. Years later, on her eighteenth birthday, Maager's daughter Mikaela finally learns the terrible truth about her father. Desperate for answers, Mikaela travels to the institution at Lejnice, where Maager has been held since his trial. But soon afterwards she inexplicably vanishes. Detective Inspector Ewa Moreno from the Maardam Police is on holiday in the area when she finds herself drawn into the case of Mikaela's disappearance. But before she can make any headway in the investigation, Maager himself disappears – and then a body is found. It will soon become clear to Ewa that only unravelling the events of the past will unlock this dark mystery . . . The Weeping Girl is followed by book nine in the series, The Strangler's Honeymoon.

The Weeping Girl

In The Persian Expedition (also known as The March of the Ten Thousand and Anabasis), Xenophon, a disciple of Socrates, relates his experiences of fighting with the Greek mercenary army ‘The Ten Thousand’ in Persia, and how he led them back to the safety of the Black Sea coast. Seeking to depose his brother Artaxerxes and take his place upon the Persian throne, Cyrus the Younger leads the 10,000 mercenaries on a dangerous campaign deep into the heart of Persia. There Cyrus is killed and his generals overthrown, leaving a young Xenophon to lead the army on its treacherous journey home. Snowy mountains, wide rivers, violent blizzards and hostile tribes obstruct their way, testing Xenophon’s leadership and his soldiers’ perseverance to the extreme.

The Persian Expedition [Anabasis]

Beginning at the end of Augustus’s reign, Tacitus’s Annals examines the rules of the Roman emperors from Tiberius to Nero (though Caligula’s books are lost to us). Their dramas and scandals are brought fully under the spotlight, as Tacitus presents a catalogue of their murders, atrocities, sexual improprieties and other vices in no unsparing terms. Debauched, cruel and paranoid, they are portrayed as being on the verge of madness. Their wars and battles, such as the war with the Parthians, are also described with the same scrutinising intensity. Tacitus’s last major historical work, the Annals is an extraordinary glimpse into the pleasures and perils of a Roman leader, and is considered by many to be a masterpiece.

Annals

John Galsworthy’s magnificent trilogy of power and passion chronicles the wealthy Forsyte family. As the disintegrating values of the Victorian era progress to World War I and the political uncertainty of the 1930s, the family’s material and emotional struggles are set within the dwindling status of the affluent middle-classes. Infused with warmth, compassion and engaging characters, the complete Chronicles are divided into three volumes, containing nine books and four interludes in total. Volume 2, A Modern Comedy, focuses on Soames’s vivacious daughter, Fleur. Soames tries constantly to protect her but is baffled by the carefree attitudes in post-war London. In their elegant, fashionable house, Fleur and her husband Michael Mont host society gatherings, but her previous affair with Jon Forsyte leaves embers of a passion that are ready to ignite – with dreadful consequences. A Modern Comedy contains Book 1: The White Monkey, Interlude: A Silent Wooing, Book 2: The Silver Spoon, Interlude: Passers By and Book 3: Swan Song.

The Forsyte Chronicles, Vol. 2: A Modern Comedy

In the last six stories written by Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, the duo face some of their most challenging cases. In The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, Holmes puts his own life in danger as he tries to cut short a young girl’s infatuation with the notorious wife-murderer Baron Gruner. Why is Mrs. Maberley offered a handsome price for the Three Gables, provided she leaves at once and takes nothing with her? Even in his retirement, Holmes’s skills are called upon, as he follows a trail of death on the Sussex coast in The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes – Volume II

The Sign of Four is the second story by Conan Doyle about the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. From the moment Mary Morstan tells Holmes about the mysterious disappearance of her father and the yearly gift of a pearl from an unknown benefactor, Holmes and his companion Watson are involved in an exotic tale of stolen treasure, secret oaths and murder, culminating in a breath-taking chase down the Thames. Holmes is on top form, and Watson falls in love. David Timson won the ‘Audiobook of the Year Award’ for his reading of this, the first Sherlock Holmes novel.

The Sign of Four

"In The Pickwick Papers, his first novel, Dickens displays the talents and skills that became his trademark; observational humour, pathos and social comment abound as we follow Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller, his sharp-tongued cockney servant, travelling around England with his friends in search of adventure and knowledge. Brilliantly comic scenes at the Eatanswill election, and the trial of Mrs Bardell vs Pickwick contrast with the horrors of the debtors prison. It was Thackeray who described the novel as ‘that great contemporary history’, and it presents a nostalgic view of England just before the coming of the railway."

The Pickwick Papers

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 industrialised 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.

Dombey and Son

The rich life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is featured here: his work as a doctor, his novels and journalistic writings, his support of Spiritualism and his defence of fairies. This is a unique set for the 150th anniversary of his birth. After his early years in medicine, the writing talents of Arthur Conan Doyle took over. Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger were among his successes. David Timson, an actor and director who has read the complete Sherlock Holmes collection for Naxos AudioBooks, has compiled this commemorative collection showing the range of Conan Doyle’s life and work. It includes the 2 CD biography by Hesketh Pearson, The Speckled Band, an excerpt from The Lost World and his defence of the Cottingley Fairies.

The Essential Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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