Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young, feisty, devastatingly acute Horace Rumpole in this collection of cracking cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders: It is the fifties, and two war heroes have been shot dead. Defending the suspect is deemed hopeless, so the case is handed to a novice. But th...

Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measure of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors---among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on a...

Wealthy businessman Rex Fortescue is found dead with rye grain in his pocket. His death is followed in quick succession by a woman dying while eating bread and honey, and a maid in her garden. Inspector Neele, in charge of investigating the spate of murders, consults with Miss Marple, who has an interesting and surprising theory to offer. She sense...

Amsterdam is bursting at the seams and the police are out in force, struggling to manage the crowds. Brigadier Pieter Vos is on duty with his young assistant, Laura Bakker, when the first grenade hits. In the chaos a young girl wearing a pink jacket is kidnapped. But she isn't the daughter of an Amsterdam aristocrat as the terrorists first thought....

Gina McKee stars in this chilling apocalyptic radio drama by award-winning writer Val McDermid. It's the Summer Solstice weekend, and 150,000 people have descended on a farm in the North East of England for an open-air music festival. Reporting on the event is journalist Zoe Meadows, who files her copy from a food van run by her friends Sam and Lis...

Neve comes across a troubled woman called Isabelle on Waterloo Bridge late one night. Isabelle forces a parcel into Neve's hands and jumps to her death in the icy Thames below. Two weeks later, as Neve's wreck of a life in London collapses, an unexpected lifeline falls into her lap - a charming cottage in Cornwall left to her by Isabelle, the woman...

A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Till...

With his black hat, huge umbrella, unwordly simplicity and 'beaming but breathless geniality', Father Brown is one of fiction's best-loved amateur detectives. Short and tatty, but with the wisdom and insight to unravel the most wayward of criminal minds, he has entertained generations. In Series 1, the High Priest of detection becomes involved in s...

The 'little cleric from Essex' Father Brown features in this intriguing detective story from master of twists and turns G. K. Chesterton. A man's body is found in a passage, and the suspect must be found. But what motive could have possessed someone to kill in such cold blood? A listener will find out...with a few unexpected surprises along the way...

Poirot has always hated visiting the dentist, but this time his check-up is painless and soon over. As he leaves Mr. Morley's surgery, he observes a woman wearing patent leather shoes with large buckles. She catches one of the buckles on the taxi door and wrenches it off, and as Poirot hands it back, he is reminded of the children's rhyme "One, two...

Kim and Mia Timmers were just eleven years old when they were imprisoned in a local psychiatric institution, accused of murdering the man they believed to be responsible for the death of their family. Now, ten years later, they are due for release.Detective Pieter Vos is given cause to re-open the case when the girls disappear. His investigation ta...

With his black hat, huge umbrella, unwordly simplicity and 'beaming but breathless geniality', Father Brown is one of fiction's best-loved amateur detectives. Short and tatty, but with the wisdom and insight to unravel the most wayward of criminal minds, he has entertained generations. Here, the High Priest of detection becomes involved in four int...

Miss Marple is totally shocked to receive a letter from the recently deceased Mr. Rafiel, an acquaintance she had met briefly on her travels. The letter leaves instructions for Miss Marple, whom Mr. Rafiel had recognised as a natural detective, to investigate a crime after his death. There are absolutely no details about the crime, however, nothing...

Barney Crispin, SAS Captain, is sent urgently to the Afghanistan border on the direct order of the Foreign Secretary. His mission is to organise the destruction of one of the new Soviet helicopters and to bring its secret parts back to Britain.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of In the Dark by Cara Hunter, read by Lee Ingleby and Emma Cunniffe. A woman and child are found locked in a basement room, barely alive. No one knows who they are - the woman can't speak, and there are no missing persons reports that match their profile. The elderly man who owns the house claims he has never...

From the award-winning author of Pandaemonium. In Glasgow, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly-and incompetently-earning a crust working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real. Soon she stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets t...

There's the lost. There's the missing. And there's the taken. She asked me once if we had any secrets, and I shook my head. 'No secrets between us,' she said. 'No,' I answered. 'Never ever.' In a Durham hotel at dawn, celebrated preacher Tristan Snow is murdered as he prays. None of the other guests - not even his daughter, his wife, or her sister...

'The Eight Swords': When a woman is found dead at Paula's hair salon, Sexton Blake is called in to investigate. 'A Murder of Crows': Over the past six weeks, two men have been murdered. And both shared the name George Crow. 'Double and Quit': The top-secret Department 7 recruit Sexton Blake as a special agent. 'You Must Be Joking': A friend from Bl...

A millionaire strikes a deal on the seedier side of Paris and a priceless cache of rubies becomes destined for his beloved daughter Rachel. Two days later Rachel is dead - murdered on a train on her way to the Riviera to meet her scoundrel lover: a mysterious, dark man. The suspects line up...only master slueth Hercule Poirot can unravel the myster...

Anneliese Vos, sixteen-year-old daughter of detective, Pieter Vos, disappeared three years ago. Her father's desperate search revealed nothing. One day, Laura Bakker, a trainee detective visits to tell him that the daughter of local politician, Katja Prins, has gone missing in circumstances similar to Anneliese. Vos is drawn back into the life of a...

How far would you go to protect the people you love? Would you take a fall? Would you take a bullet? Would you take a life? When her father's killer, Glen Fallan, is arrested for another murder, PI Jasmine Sharp enters an underworld where violence is a way of life and vengeance spans generations. DS Catherine McLeod has one major Glaswegian gangste...