For the first time on CD the unabridged audio edition of the cases that made up Hercule Poirots formative years as a detective. Read by the inimitable Hugh Fraser & David Suchet. Still in the formative years of his career Hercule Poirot faces a most taxing case: who killed Lord Cronshaw? Was Coco Courtenays death on the same night a mere coincidence? & did she deliberately take an overdose of cocaine? No sooner has Poirot revealed his astonishing powers of deduction than he is faced with seventeen other mysteries to test his soon-to-be-famous little grey cells. As a matter of courtesy to a group of young people he endeavours to solve the gruesome murder of a woman whose body they have stumbled upon whilst locked out of their flat & with his usual precision & elan he discovers exactly how Mary Mary quite contrary makes her garden grow! ...

Poison boy Dalton Fly a lowly food taster to the rich has a lucky escape after drinking laced wine. But his mate is less fortunate & Dalton wants answers. Who murdered his friend & what were they were really after? With the help of aristocratic girl Scarlet Dropmore whose life he unwittingly saved he sets out to rescue his city from the poisoners within. ...

Deep in the cellars of the OBrien Press is a safe that contained stories too horrible to be read. But somebody has broken into that safe & the stories have been released. This is one of those Forbidden Files. They called it The Fart Factory it smelled so bad. The Kanker & Byle Chemical Company was a towering heap of buildings & pipes & walkways just piled on top of each other. Then somebody had stuck some chimneys on the top like candles on the worlds ugliest birthday cake. When the Root Street Gang lose their football in the Kanker & Byle Chemical Factory Gaz sends his little brother Joey in to get it back. & then they lose Joey. Faced with returning home without his brother & facing his Mams wrath Gaz has no choice but to lead his friends Hayley & Damo into the factory to find Joey & their football. But this is no ordinary factory & in no time at all Gaz Hayley & Damo encounter the living dead giant insects & a man with the most disgusting job in the world. But there is an even worse fate awaiting them at the end of their search. ...

The book tells the story of the poisoned arrow that shot Paris (as in Helen of Troy). In the beginning Earth created monsters. One of these was the Hydra. Heracles killed it then dipped his arrows in the venom of its blood. Years later when his wife was abducted by a centaur he killed the rapist with one of these arrows. The dying centaur told Heracles wife to dip a robe in his blood & give it to Heracles as a token of her love. Heracles put on the robe & was burned alive by the poison. He built himself a funeral pyre but no one would light it. Finally a small boy named Philoctetes did as Heracles asked & Heracles left him his arrows as a reward. It was with one of these arrows that Paris was shot. Dying he was taken into the woods where there lived a goddess who had once loved Paris & had the power of healing. But she refused to cure him & sent him away. Repenting she then hurried after him but it was too late. ...

Its 1308 & England hovers on the brink of civil war. Edward II his wife Isabella & the royal favourite Peter Gaveston Earl of Cornwall have been forced to retreat to the Kings folly. Just an arrowshot away lie the Great Lords & Philip IV of France who are demanding that the Earl of Cornwall be charged with high treason. Edward is trapped & worse he has learnt that Philip has the Poison Maiden on his side a formidable spy who did untold damage during his fathers reign. As Edward tries in vain to unmask the identity of the spy Mathilde handmaiden to the Queen also attempts to identify the source of this threat. Soon the crisis spills over into violence. The Lords attempt to take Gaveston by force & the King & his Court including Mathilde are forced to flee. As the enemy closes in Mathilde finds herself embroiled in a life & death struggle for the English crown. ...

Locked in a coffin-like darkness there is nothing to distract me from my memories of killing Reyad. He deserved to die--but according to the law so do I. Here in Ixia the punishment for murder is death. & now I wait for the hangman's noose. But the same law that condemns me may also save me. Ixia's food taster--chosen to ensure that the Commander's food is not poisoned--has died. & by law the next prisoner who is scheduled to be executed--me--must be offered the position. ...

How much is your life worth? In the Territory of Ixia control is maintained through the Code of Behaviour forbidding the practice of magic but danger lurks in mysterious places... Imprisoned for murder Yelena Zaltana's punishment is death unless she accepts the position of the Commander of Ixia's food taster...and risks assassination from poison daily. In a world where magic equals death & freedom is for the lucky few the battle for Yelena's life has just begun. ...

A tense story of a spy undercover during the First World War Andrew Williams recreates the early years of the Secret Service as evocatively as anything by John le Carr? or Robert Harris. The Poison Tide is the first in a series of novels set in that world & 'possesses a richness of characterisation & intelligence that few thrillers can match' Sunday Times. 1915. German guns are on their way to Irel&. The British government faces its worst nightmare; insurrection at home while it struggles with bloody stalemate on the Western Front. British spy Sebastian Wolff of the new Secret Service Bureau is given the task of hunting down its enemies: one a traitor reviled by the society that honoured him as a national hero; the other a German-American doctor who instead of healing the sick is developing a terrifying new weapon that he will use in the country of his birth. Wolff's mission will take him undercover into the corridors of power in Berlin then across the Atlantic in a race against time to prevent the destruction of the ships & supplies Britain so desperately needs to stave off defeat. ...

I have given up so much & done so many terrible things already for the sake of my family that I can only keep going. I do not know what is going to happen to us. I am frightened but I feel strong. I have the strength of a woman who has everything to lose. In the sweltering summer of 1997 strait-laced straight-A student Karen met Biba
- a bohemian & impossibly glamorous aspiring actress. She was quickly drawn into Bibas world & for a while life was one long summer of love. But every summer must end. By the end of theirs two people were dead
- & now Karens past has come back to haunt her.. .

...

1831: as England emerges from the post war depression the country is changing & the birth pains of the Reform Act bring it to the brink of revolution. The violent times breed violent acts both outside & inside the Morland family. Sophie's life is shattered by a hideous crime. Rosamund learns that achieving her dreams brings as much pain as pleasure. Heloise mourning her beloved James lets control of Morland Place fall into chaos- Benedict has to flee his home & makes a life amongst the railway pioneers while Nicholas now has the freedom to indulge the dark side of his nature. & amongst them all stalks the deadly invisible threat of cholera. ...