Showing results by narrator "Sarah Barron" in All Categories

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 that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale...

When Nancy spies her Christmas present from her husband sitting on the lawn, she realises the jewellery she thought was for her must be on someone else. Her best friend, Carmen, isn't surprised (she never liked Jonathan) and persuades Nancy to leave Edinburgh and come and stay in her luxury London flat - far too vast for Carmen since her husband, millionaire rock star Spike Todd, died. Soon Nancy's met gorgeous Connor O'Shea, who lives next door, and his daughter, Mia, is matchmaking.

You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes. You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a Sunday best hat. Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation.

Private investigator Jasmine Shar has been hired to find Tessa Garrion, a young woman who has vanished without trace. What begins as a simple search awakens a malevolence that has lain dormant for three decades. As Jasmine uncovers a hidden history of sex, drugs, ritualism, and murder, she realises she may need a little help from the dark side herself if she's going to get to the truth.

Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo, but in her punk phase she got herself pregnant, and now she’s 46. She's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet. Then her son, Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer, is forced to disappear and to part with the secrets of his research. Jane will finally get the adventure she’s always wanted but at a price....

The dead talk. To the right listener, they tell us all about themselves: how they lived, how they died--and who killed them. Val McDermid uncovers the secrets of forensic medicine with groundbreaking research and her own experience. Along the way you’ll wonder at how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine time of death and how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer.

Thirteen years ago, DI Helen Birch's little brother Charlie disappeared. Two days ago, Birch was part of a raid on one of Scotland's most feared criminal organisations. Yesterday, Charlie came back.... Now Birch has a choice: save her career, or save Charlie? As she interrogates her brother, we see his story, in a brilliantly tense and clever story about what people will do to survive and the lines they'll cross to protect those they love.

The summer of 1976 was unprecedented in living memory. Days of blazing sunshine bled into weeks and months. In the Lake District, Cumbria's mountains and valleys began to resemble a Grecian landscape. People swam in delightfully tropic waters to cool off. But barely three feet below the surface, the temperature remained just a degree or so above freezing. As the summer blazed on, the drownings began....

Keeping on top of the family funeral directors' and private-investigation businesses is no easy task for the Skelf women, and when matriarch Dorothy discovers a human foot while walking the dog, a perplexing case presents itself. Daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their hands full, too: the mysterious circumstances of a dying woman lead them into an unexpected family drama, Hannah's new astrophysicist colleague claims he's receiving messages from outer space, and the Skelfs' teenaged lodger has yet another devastating experience.

Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour has learned to be tough. The places she’s been and the stories she’s covered, she’s had to be. Her experience stands her in good stead for a grisly new investigation: the body of a refugee in a Glasgow canal, missing limbs and vital organs. He’s not the first person to go missing – are there vigilantes at work or is there something far more sinister going on? It’s up to Rosie to find out – but will what she discovers leave her with murder on her hands?

DI Helen Birch is recovering from major surgery, housebound and exceptionally bored. Her boss, DCI McLeod, has made it crystal clear: she is not to take on any work until her recuperation is over. In her absence, Amy Kato is promoted to sergeant and is given a maddening case to work on: Edinburgh is being plagued by an anonymous vigilante. He started small, meting out punishment to obnoxious boy racers and other antisocial folk, but his behaviour is escalating. Amy can tell from the anonymous online paper trail he leaves.

Jen's hen party is going to be out of control. She's rented a luxury getaway on its own private island. The helicopter won't be back for seventy-two hours. They are alone. They think. As well as Jen, there's the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law. It's a combustible cocktail, one that takes little time to ignite, and in the midst of the drunken chaos, one of them disappears.

On the quayside next to the Endless Beach sits the Summer Seaside Kitchen. It's a haven for tourists and locals alike, who all come to eat the freshest local produce on the island and catch up with the gossip. Flora, who runs the café, feels safe and content - unless she thinks too hard about her relationship with Joel, her gorgeous but emotionally (and physically) distant boyfriend. While Flora is in turmoil about her relationship, her best friend, Lorna, is pining after the local doctor.

Clare and Lorraine have been friends since college and trust each other with their lives. So when Lorraine, a single mother, needs a much-needed night away without her children, she calls on Clare and her husband, Sam, to look after them. They're godparents - what could go wrong? While Clare and Sam believe the children to be asleep, the unimaginable happens and Clare finds baby Theo lifeless in his room. The police are called. Statements are taken. But the biggest nightmare for any parent is about to spiral out of control. Because a lie has been told. An enormous and terrible one.

In her memoir, Monica, 54, tells the story of her childhood, when her mother, Betty Mount, forced her head under running bathroom taps and tried to strangle her. She had previously tried to kill Monica as a baby. Monica was taken into foster care, where her new parents ran a brutal regime. To the outside world, the family was devoutly religious and respectable, but behind closed doors, Monica was physically and sexually abused.

Ruby's singing career is on the verge of hitting the big time when her voice breaks. Fearing her career is over, she signs up for a retreat in Tenerife to recover. But an unexpected call from a stranger on a remote Scottish island takes her on a short trip to sort out some family business. It's time to go and see the grandfather she's never met. City girl Ruby knows she will be happy to leave the windswept beaches behind as quickly as she can, especially as a years-old family rift means she knows she won't be welcome at Teach Mhor.

Jamie Lee just wants to be normal. But ADHD doesn't make that easy. If only he could control his butterfly mind then he'd be able to have friends, keep out of trouble—and not be sent away to stay with his dad. Elin Watts just wants to be perfect. If she can be the best student and daughter possible, then maybe her dad will come back to live with her and her mum. When their families blend, these polar opposites collide. But as their lives spiral out of control, Jamie and Elin discover that they're actually more alike than different.

When the body of a man in 18th-century Highland dress is discovered on the site of the Battle of Culloden, Journalist Rebecca Connolly takes up the story for the Chronicle. Meanwhile, a film being made about the '45 Rebellion has enraged the right-wing group Spirit of the Gael, which is connected to a shadowy group called Black Dawn linked to death threats and fake anthrax deliveries to Downing Street and Holyrood. When a second body - this time in the Redcoat uniform of the government army - is found in Inverness, Rebecca finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mystery.

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life. While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter, Jenny, and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles.

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.