Narrator

James Langton

James Langton
  • A darkly luminous new anthology collecting the most terrifying horror stories by renowned female authors, presenting anew these forgotten classics to the modern reader

    Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published one of the first mummy tales. These ladies weren’t alone. From the earliest days of gothic and horror fiction, women were exploring the frontiers of fear, dreaming dark dreams that will still keep you up at night.

    More Deadly than the Male includes unexpected horror tales by Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and forgotten writers like Mary Cholmondely and Charlotte Riddell, whose work deserves a modern audience. Listeners will be drawn in by the familiar names and intrigued by their rare stories.

    In The Beckside Boggle, Alice Rea brings a common piece of English folklore to hair-raising life, while Helene Blavatsky, best known as the founder of the spiritualist Theosophical Society, conjures up a solid and satisfying ghost story in The Cave of the Echoes. Edith Wharton’s great novel The Age of Innocence won her the Pulitzer prize, yet her horror stories are known only to a comparative few.

    Listeners will discover lost and forgotten women who wrote horror every bit as effectively as their male contemporaries. They will learn about their lives and careers, the challenges they faced as women working in a male-dominated field, the way they overcame those challenges, and the way they approached the genre―which was often subtler, more psychological, and more disturbing.

  • The Club is a blistering, timely, and gripping novel set at Cambridge University, centering around an all-male dining club for the most privileged and wealthy young men at Cambridge and following an outsider who exposes the dark secrets of this group, the Pitt Club.

    As a boy, Hans Stichler enjoys a fable-like childhood among the rolling hills and forests of North Germany, living an idyll that seems uninterruptable. A visit from Hans’ ailing English aunt Alex, who comes to stay for an entire summer, has a profound effect on the young Hans, all the more so when she invites him to come to university at Cambridge, where she teaches art history. Alex will ensure his application to St. John’s College is accepted, but in return he must help her investigate an elite university club of young aristocrats and wealthy social climbers, the Pitt Club. The club has existed at Cambridge for centuries, its long legacy of tradition and privilege largely unquestioned. As Hans makes his best efforts to prove club material and infiltrate its ranks, including testing his mettle in the boxing ring, he is drawn into a world of extravagance, debauchery, and macho solidarity. And when he falls in love with fellow student Charlotte, he sees a potential new life of upper-class sophistication opening up to him. But there are secrets in the club’s history, as well as in its present―and Hans soon finds himself in the inner sanctum of what proves to be an increasingly dangerous institution, forced to grapple with the notion that sometimes one must do wrong to do right.

  • In a sensational follow-up to Echoes of Sherlock Holmes and In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, a brand-new anthology of stories inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle canon

    For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times bestselling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: ask some of the world’s greatest writers―regardless of genre―to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.

    The results are surprising and joyous. Some tales are pastiches, featuring the recognizable figures of Holmes and Watson; others step away in time or place to describe characters and stories influenced by the Holmes world. Some of the authors spin whimsical tales of fancy; others tell hardcore thrillers or puzzling mysteries. One beloved author writes a song; two others craft a melancholy tale of insectoid analysis.

    This is not a volume for listeners who crave a steady diet of stories about Holmes and Watson on Baker Street. Rather, it is for the generations of people who were themselves inspired by the classic tales, and who are prepared to let their imaginations roam freely.

    Features stories by Peter S. Beagle, Rhys Bowen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jamie Freveletti, Alan Gordon, Gregg Hurwitz, Toni L. P. Kelner, William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, Harley Jane Kozak, D. P. Lyle, Weston Ochse, Zoe Sharp, Duane Swierczynski, and F. Paul Wilson

  • In the third Magic Men mystery, the first partially set in America, a threat of mass violence looms over Elizabeth II’s coronation. Can DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto crack the case and save the crown?

    Elizabeth II’s coronation is looming, but DI Edgar Stephens is busy investigating the death of a local fortune-teller. Meanwhile, his old pal, the magician Max Mephisto, is rehearsing for his television debut, a Coronation Day variety show. But upon hearing that their wartime commander, Colonel Cartwright, has been found dead in his flat, the two men join forces to find out what happened.

    While Max is stuck in rehearsals, Edgar finds himself heading to New York, hot on the trail of a mesmerist he’s sure has valuable information for them—and his trusty sergeant, Emma, investigates some important leads at home. As the clock ticks down to Coronation Day, the team must scramble to keep Max’s small-screen debut from ending in a dangerously explosive finale.

  • Nashville’s Bart and the Cousins, in England on a road trip, have a chart-topping song. Unfortunately Bart also has an indictment back in the USA over an underage groupie. Keeping that hot news out of the London papers is a job for Doug Perkins of the PR firm Perkins and Tate. Doug soon finds that you can take the boy out of the country … but he’s still going to run after jailbait. And when Doug thinks the situation can’t get any worse, secrets about love and money start emerging faster than sad notes from the band’s toothless harmonica player.

    What’s really going on among Bart and the Cousins is a shocker, but even a spin doctor can’t cover up its deadly consequences. Instead Doug may have to turn from PR to PI … and figure out who committed murder.