Showing results by narrator "Tony Britton" in All Categories

Australian horse breeder Daniel Roke had resisted the exorbitant sum of money offered by a suave Englishman to investigate a scandal involving drugged racehorses. But after another investigator dies mysteriously, Roke agrees to fill his shoes, and learns that men who would give drugs to horses are capable of doing much worse to human beings …

J. B. Priestley was one of Britain's most significant writers. His output was prodigious: in his lifetime, he penned 26 novels, 39 plays and hundreds of essays. He enjoyed great success on stage, notably with Dangerous Corner, Time and the Conways and An Inspector Calls, which experimented with narrative structure and unorthodox theories of time. Included here are some of his most esteemed works, adapted for radio and brought together in one statement collection.

On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honor of her mother's dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn. Terrified of the inn's brooding power, Mary gradually finds herself ensnared in the dark schemes being enacted behind its crumbling walls - and tempted to love a man she dares not trust.

It’s the classic law of the invader. Get to the strongest guy and smash him, then watch the weaker ones fall like ninepins. Which is just what a vicious gang of horse dealers decides to do when their little kickback scam is threatened with a spot of old-fashioned honesty. But they haven’t reckoned with bloodstock agent Jonah Dereham, a man who belies his quiet exterior with a steely and implacable resolve. They can threaten him, try to burn down his home, even attempt to kill him. But they’ll soon wish they hadn’t.

William Whittlestaff, an aging bachelor, becomes a guardian to the much younger Mary Lawrie. Having lost the woman he loved to a richer rival many years ago, he now finds himself falling in love with Mary despite knowing that her love belongs to another man, John Gordon. John left three years previously in search of his fortune in order to make himself worthy of Mary. Not knowing if she will ever see him again, Mary accepts Whittlestaff's proposal only for her true love to return.

At an annual party to celebrate the success of the racing season, everything seemed to be running well to form, including the need for more champagne. Then a runaway horsebox ploughed into the marquee. A witness to the terrible death and destruction, wine merchant Tony Beach knows it is just one of those tragic accidents. But when his expert advice is called into play over sub-standard alcohol in a local night club, connections start to click, and another person dies, horribly.

A beautiful Italian girl driving home in an open top sports car, a little boy playing on a South Coast beach and the senior steward of the Jockey Club on his way to a press reception in Baltimore. One after the other they suffer the same nightmare ordeal - kidnapping. But there is one thing connecting these particular cases. For the Italian girl is a jockey, and the little boy an only son of a racehorse owner.

Alexander Kinloch, artist, has worked out a good pattern for his life. His home is a small bothy on a remote mountain in Scotland; he paints on commission, from which he derives both pleasure and a decent income; he lives alone and likes it. One day, however, Alexander's peace is violently shattered when he returns home to find a group of strangers waiting for him. Afer a scuffle, he is left for dead with only the wind and the words "Where is it?" ringing in his ears.

Amazing what bodily injury could do for a man. A fall from a racehorse had left brilliant jockey Sid Halley dangerously depressed, with a wrecked hand and the need for a new career. And now a bullet wound was helping him find one. He'd been with a detective agency since his racing accident, but it wasn't until some two-bit hoodlum drilled a slug into his side that he was sent out on a case of his own. That was where he met Zanna Martin, a woman who just might make life worth living again.

Sid Halley had one good hand and another made of metal. Five hundred pounds of horse had landed on him, directly ending his career as a brilliant jockey - and indirectly ending his marriage to the woman he loved. He had become a private investigator, quite a good one, though his new life could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories.

The Gospel of John: Tony Britton reads St John's account of the life and teachings of Jesus. Specially composed music is included. The readings were part of BBC Radio 4's series of 341 daily episodes of the Bible, broadcast in 1991 and 1992. Abridged by Penny Leicester

Free choice? There's no such thing, according to Lee Morris. Choice is pre-ordained by your personality. Stratton Park racecourse faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Lee is slowly sucked into the turmoil, unwillingly on the surface but half-understanding the deep compulsions that influence his decisions. One road leads to safety, another to death. How do you know which is which?

John Kendall knows how to survive. He's written six handbooks on the subject. Now he wants to become a novelist, preferably without starving to death. But when cold and hunger set in, Kendall impulsively accepts an unlikely job. He is to research and write a biography of Tremayne Vickers, a famous racehorse trainer. Staying at Vickers' home in rural Berkshire, Kendall soon learns to like his host and friends, learns to ride racehorses, learns about murderers ...

Three jockeys warned not to win their races turned into also-rans. Bill died when the sure-footed Admiral fell, Joe was scared rotten, and Alan York became the target of a vicious gang. But he wanted revenge and to hell with the risk.

Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator who appears in Odds Against and Whip Hand, is back and facing new dilemmas and dangers. The opening finds him having uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend whom he, and everyone else, has held in affection bordering on love.

Randall Drew is prevented from carrying on his career in steeplechasing by poor eyesight. Restless and unsure of his future but pursuing an ardent love affair, he does not welcome an invitation to go to Moscow on a delicate investigation, but almost irresistible pressure is brought to bear. A mysterious entity, "Alyosha", is threatening a royally-connected candidate for the Moscow Olympic Games; the candidate may be vulnerable to scandal which could set off intolerable diplomatic conflicts.

Philip Nore is nearing the end as a jockey. George Millace is finished in photography. The differnce is, Millace is dead, and Nore has discovered his secret: a set of files which would blow the top off the racing world. Hated by a dying grandmother he has never known and abused by a trainer he knows only too well, Nore is no stranger to shabby morals. And when he begins to decipher the dead man's photographs, he uncovers corruption on a scale he had never imagined.

Despair, suicide, and obsessive hatred, mixed well with humor, love, and horses, brew up into the story of a battle between one man's nerve and another man's cunning. Robert Finn, steeplechase jockey, finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign which is also afflicting his friends. He sets out to discover its source, and remove it.

When jockey Martin Stukely dies following a fall in a steeplechase at Cheltenham races, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. Gerard Logan is a glass-blower on the verge of widespread acclaim for his work.

It's the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles Sid Halley. He knows the perils of racing all too well, but in his day, jockeys didn't reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest.