Audiobooks narrated by John Hopkins

An explosive, fast-paced espionage thriller for fans of Frank Gardner and Mick Herron. ‘Dark and twisted, A Time to Lie is a tense and timely novel’ Adam Hamdy A divisive prime minister. A long-buried body. A plot to bring him down… The bigger the secret the more dangerous it is to lie… On the morning of the Tory Party conference, the bones of a young woman’s hand are discovered in a London building site. Jed Fowkes, Special Adviser at the Treasury, confronts Prime Minister Robin Sandford with a terrible accusation. He claims the hand belongs to someone they once knew well: a young woman whom Sandford murdered years ago. With his career on the brink of ruin, the Prime Minister’s only hope is to enlist the unofficial help of MI5. A decision which leads him into a new world of espionage, illegal trafficking and murder. And the deeper he goes, the more treacherous the game becomes. Because now it’s not just his life on the line; it’s the future of the state itself… ‘A pulse-pounding thrill-ride that hooked me from the chilling opening, A Time To Lie delivers on every, explosive level’ Chris Whitaker ‘Dark and twisted, A Time To Lie is a tense and timely novel’ Adam Hamdy

Simon Berthon (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings ‘the heart-stopping story of the missile crisis’ Daily Telegraph ‘A story that grabs from the get-go – the moments in which the world teetered on the brink of total annihilation come alive as they would if this were the very best fiction’ Justin Webb, Mail on Sunday ‘The most gripping narrative of the crisis… frightening but hopelessly addictive’ Gerald DeGroot, Times The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those weeks, the world gazed into the abyss of potential annihilation. Max Hastings’s graphic new history tells the story from the viewpoints of national leaders, Russian officers, Cuban peasants, American pilots and British disarmers. Max Hastings deploys his accustomed blend of eye-witness interviews, archive documents and diaries, White House tape recordings, top-down analysis, first to paint word-portraits of the Cold War experiences of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Nikita Khrushchev’s Russia and Kennedy’s America; then to describe the nail-biting Thirteen Days in which Armageddon beckoned. Hastings began researching this book believing that he was exploring a past event from twentieth century history. He is as shocked as are millions of us around the world, to discover that the rape of Ukraine gives this narrative a hitherto unimaginable twenty-first century immediacy. We may be witnessing the onset of a new Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers. To contend with today’s threat, which Hastings fears will prove enduring, it is critical to understand how, sixty years ago, the world survived its last glimpse into the abyss. Only by fearing the worst, he argues, can our leaders hope to secure the survival of the planet.

Max Hastings (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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Ascent: From the creator of Bodyguard and Line of Duty

Brought to you by Penguin. A truly stunning novel of one man's dangerous obsession with immortality, from the BAFTA award-winning creator of Bodyguard and Line of Duty ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S '1000 NOVELS EVERYONE MUST READ' Yefgenii Yeremin is a flyer and a phantom. Destined to go down in Soviet history books as 'Ivan the Terrible', the most deadly fighter pilot of the Korean War, one moment of madness sees Yefgenii throwing his reputation to the wind. Exiled to a remote Arctic base, his name unknown and victories uncelebrated, he must endure a fate worse than death: anonymity. But when a man arrives from Moscow's Space Committee in search of a volunteer prepared to sacrifice himself for his country, Yefgenii seizes his one last chance of immortality. 'A completely gripping, read-at-once novel' The Times © Jed Mercurio 2007 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Jed Mercurio (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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Envy

'Compulsive reading' JANE CORRY 'Full of tension' KAREN HAMILTON She wants your life - and she'll do anything to get it... Erica has always wanted to be exactly like her neighbour, Faye: beautiful, thin, and a mother. But Faye's life isn't as perfect as it seems - she has a terrible secret, and slowly but surely, it is threatening to destroy her and everything she holds dear. When Faye's daughter Tamsin goes missing after school, the police turn to Erica. But is Erica the only one who has been enviously watching Faye? Or is there another threat hiding in the shadows...? An unsettling, claustrophobic thriller about jealousy, greed and desire from Sunday Times bestseller Amanda Robson.

Amanda Robson (Author), Emma Fenney, Gloria Sanders, Gloria Saunders, John Hopkins, Simon Bubb (Narrator)

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Fabulous

Not since Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber have old stories been made to feel so electrically new. Not since Wim Winders' Wings of Desire have the numinous and the everyday been so magically combined. It's in the nature of myth to be infinitely adaptable. Each of these startlingly original stories is set in modern Britain. Their characters include a people-trafficking gang-master and a prostitute, a migrant worker and a cocksure estate agent, an elderly musician doubly befuddled by dementia and the death of his wife, a pest-controller suspected of paedophilia and a librarian so well-behaved that her parents wonder anxiously whether she'll ever find love. They're ordinary people, preoccupied, as we all are now, by the deficiencies of the health service, by criminal gangs and homelessness, by the pitfalls of dating in the age of #metoo. All of their stories, though, are inspired by ones drawn from Graeco-Roman myth, from the Bible or from folk-lore. The ancients invented myths to express what they didn't understand. These witty fables, elegantly written and full of sharp-eyed observation of modern life, are also visionary explorations of potent mysteries and strange passions, charged with the hallucinatory beauty and horror of their originals.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Author), John Hopkins, John Hopkinson (Narrator)

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Lie Beside Me: From the bestselling author of Richard and Judy bestseller She Lies in Wait

Brought to you by Penguin. You wake up. You can't remember what happened. The man lying next to you is not your husband. And he's not breathing... The gripping third thriller starring DCI Jonah Sheens, from the author of Richard and Judy pick and Sunday Times bestseller She Lies in Wait. Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy. But she suspects she's done something bad. She rolls over towards her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved. But it's not Niall who's lying beside her. In fact, she's never seen this man before. And he's dead . . . As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it's clear to Detective Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect - though they soon find she's not the only one with something to hide. Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again? Praise for the Sunday Times bestselling Jonah Sheens series... 'What a marvel! A corkscrew-twisty, knife-sharp thriller. . . Prepare to be haunted' A J Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window 'I loved it. A SUPERIOR crime novel' Marian Keyes 'An engaging tale of lust, rivalry and murder' The Sunday Times 'A dark, deep, terrific thriller and a scorching portrait of friendship and its betrayal' Nicci French © Gytha Lodge 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Gytha Lodge (Author), John Hopkins, Louise Brealey (Narrator)

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Little Sister: Is she witness, victim or killer? A nail-biting thriller with twists you'll never see

Brought to you by Penguin. Two sisters went missing. Only one of them came back... Detective Jonah Sheens is enjoying a moment of peace and quiet, when a teenage girl wanders out of the wood. She's striking, with flame-red hair and a pale complexion. She's also covered in blood. She insists she's fine. It's her sister he needs to worry about. Jonah quickly discovers that Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children's home a week ago. Now, Keely is here - but Nina's still missing. Keely likes to play games. She knows where her sister is - but before she tells, she wants Jonah's full attention. Is she killer, witness, or victim? And will Jonah find out what Keely's hiding, in time to save Nina? Praise for Gytha Lodge: 'Gripped me from the first page and kept me turning the pages long into the night' Erin Kelly 'Fast-paced but never rushed, with clues and twists to keep you absolutely hooked from the first page to the last' Jane Casey 'Filled with twists and turns made to suck you in and prove once again that Gytha Lodge is a master of crime detective stories' 5**** reader review © Gytha Lodge 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Gytha Lodge (Author), Eleanor Tomlinson, John Hopkins (Narrator)

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OK, Mr. Field

Mr. Field wants a new life, a life cleansed of the old one's disappointments. A concert pianist on the London scene, his career is upended when the train he is travelling on crashes into the wall at the end of a tunnel. On a whim, he uses his compensation pay-out to buy a house he has seen only once in a newspaper photograph. Together with his wife, Mim, Mr. Field sets out in the hope that the house will make him happier, or at least less unhappy.

Katharine Kilalea (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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Operation Pedestal: The Fleet that Battled to Malta 1942

The Sunday Times bestseller 'One of the most dramatic forgotten chapters of the war, as told in a new book by the incomparable Max Hastings' DAILY MAIL In August 1942, beleaguered Malta was within weeks of surrender to the Axis, because its 300,000 people could no longer be fed. Churchill made a personal decision that at all costs, the 'island fortress' must be saved. This was not merely a matter of strategy, but of national prestige, when Britain's fortunes and morale had fallen to their lowest ebb. The largest fleet the Royal Navy committed to any operation of the western war was assembled to escort fourteen fast merchantmen across a thousand of miles of sea defended by six hundred German and Italian aircraft, together with packs of U-boats and torpedo craft. The Mediterranean battles that ensued between 11 and 15 August were the most brutal of Britain's war at sea, embracing four aircraft-carriers, two battleships, seven cruisers, scores of destroyers and smaller craft. The losses were appalling: defeat seemed to beckon. This is the saga Max Hastings unfolds in his first full length narrative of the Royal Navy, which he believes was the most successful of Britain's wartime services. As always, he blends the 'big picture' of statesmen and admirals with human stories of German U-boat men, Italian torpedo-plane crews, Hurricane pilots, destroyer and merchant-ship captains, ordinary but extraordinary seamen. Operation Pedestal describes catastrophic ship sinkings, including that of the aircraft-carrier Eagle, together with struggles to rescue survivors and salvage stricken ships. Most moving of all is the story of the tanker Ohio, indispensable to Malta's survival, victim of countless Axis attacks. In the last days of the battle, the ravaged hulk was kept under way only by two destroyers, lashed to her sides. Max Hastings describes this as one of the most extraordinary tales he has ever recounted. Until the very last hours, no participant on either side could tell what would be the outcome of an epic of wartime suspense and courage.

Max Hastings (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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SBS – Silent Warriors: The Authorised Wartime History

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A terrific book … It really is one of the most enjoyable histories I’ve read in many a year’ JAMES HOLLAND ‘An absolute must-read if you are a fan of derring-do and Andy McNab. I am going to be telling everyone to buy it’ ROB RINDER, TALK RADIO THE FIRST AUTHORISED HISTORY OF THE SBS. Britain’s SBS – or Special Boat Service – was the world’s first maritime special operations unit. Founded in the dark days of 1940, it started as a small and inexperienced outfit that leaned heavily on volunteers’ raw courage and boyish enthusiasm. It went on to change the course of the Second World War – and has served as a model for special forces ever since. The fledgling unit’s first mission was a daring beach reconnaissance of Rhodes in the spring of 1941. Over the next four years, the SBS and its affiliates would carry out many more spectacular operations in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Channel and the Far East. These missions – including Operation Frankton, the daredevil attempt by the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ to paddle up the Garonne river and sink Axis ships in Bordeaux harbour – were some of the most audacious and legendary of the war. Paddling flimsy canoes, and armed only with knives, pistols and a few sub-machine guns, this handful of brave and determined men operated deep behind enemy lines in the full knowledge that if caught they might be executed. Many were. Yet their many improbable achievements – destroying enemy ships and infrastructure, landing secret agents, tying up enemy forces, spreading fear and uncertainty, and, most importantly, preparing the ground for D-Day – helped to make an Allied victory possible. Written with the full cooperation of the modern SBS – the first time this ultra-secretive unit has given its seal of approval to any book – and exclusive access to its archives, SBS: Silent Warriors allows Britain’s original special forces to emerge from the shadows and take their proper and deserved place in our island story.

Saul David (Author), John Hopkins (Narrator)

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She Lies in Wait

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge, read by John Hopkins, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Joe Coen and Gytha Lodge. Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust? On a hot July night in 1983, six school friends go camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and young Aurora Jackson is dazzled to be allowed to tag along. Thirty years later, a body is discovered. DCI Sheens is called to the scene, but he already knows what's waiting for him: Aurora Jackson, found at long last. But that's not all. The friends have all maintained their innocence, but the body is found in a hideaway only the six of them knew about. It seems the killer has always lurked very close to home...

Gytha Lodge (Author), Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Gytha Lodge, Joe Coen, John Hopkins (Narrator)

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The Age of The Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World

Brought to you by Penguin. In The Age of the Strongman, Gideon Rachman finds global coherence in the chaos of the new nationalism, leadership cults and hostility to liberal democracy. We are in a new era: authoritarian leaders have become a central feature of global politics. Since 2000, self-styled strongmen have risen to power in capitals as diverse as Moscow, Beijing, Delhi, Brasilia, Budapest, Ankara, Riyadh and Washington. These leaders are nationalists and social conservatives, with little tolerance for minorities, dissent or the interests of foreigners. At home, they claim to be standing up for ordinary people against globalist elites; abroad, they posture as the embodiments of their nations. And everywhere they go, they encourage a cult of personality. What's more, these leaders are not just operating in authoritarian political systems but have begun to emerge in the heartlands of liberal democracy. While in the West the EU referendum and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 mark a watershed, the new era started at the beginning of the new millennium, when Vladimir Putin took power in Russia. How and why did this new style of strongman leadership arrive? How likely is it to lead the world into war or economic collapse? And what liberal forces are in place not only to keep these strongmen in check but to reverse the trend? From Trump, Putin and Bolsonaro to Erdogan, Xi and Modi, Gideon Rachman pays full attention to the strongman phenomenon around the world and uncovers the complex and often surprising interaction between these leaders. Whilst others have tried to understand the emergence of these new leaders individually, The Age of the Strongman provides the first truly global treatment of the new nationalism, underpinned by an exceptional level of access to key actors in this drama: Gideon Rachman has been in the same room with most of these strongmen and reported from their countries over a long journalistic career. © Gideon Rachman 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Gideon Rachman (Author), Gideon Rachman, John Hopkins (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by John Hopkins