Audiobook fans are about to find their wish lists getting even longer with news of six new crime titles from BBC Audiobooks including adaptations of John le Carré’s hugely successful novels Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy.
The titles, which are available from the seeing.co.uk store, are:
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
AVAILABLE NOW – BUY TODAY
Smiley, wrestling with retirement and disillusionment, is summoned to a secret meeting with a member of the Cabinet Office. Evidence has emerged that the Circus has been infiltrated at the highest level by a Russian agent. ‘Find the mole, George. Clean the stables. Do whatever is necessary.’ Reluctantly Smiley agrees, and so embarks on a dark journey into his past – a past filled with love, duplicity and betrayal.
Starring the award-winning Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and with a star cast including Anna Chancellor, Alex Jennings, Kenneth Cranham and Bill Paterson, this epic dramatisation brilliantly depicts the complicated moral dilemmas of those who practise post-war espionage and illuminates the murky corners of le Carré’s classic spy thriller – the first in the Karla trilogy.
THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY
AVAILABLE 11TH FEBRUARY – PRE-ORDER TODAY
Smiley, now head of the Circus, must rebuild trust in the shattered organisation. He is also determined to destroy his nemesis, Karla, and his spy networks. He recruits Jerry Westerby, occasional spy, occasional news reporter, full-time romantic – the Honourable Schoolboy of the title – and despatches him to the Far East, where, amidst the corruption and decay of former colonies, a new battle is about to begin…
Starring the award-winning Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and with a star cast including Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Steed and Anna Chancellor, this gripping dramatisation perfectly captures the atmosphere of le Carré’s intricate, intriguing novel, the second in the Karla trilogy.
TOWARDS ZERO
AVAILABLE 4TH FEBRUARY – PRE-ORDER TODAY
Lady Tresselian invites several guests to stay at her seaside house at Gull’s Point. Against her better judgment she has allowed her late husband’s ward, handsome tennis ace Neville Strange, and his wife Kay, to come at the same time as Neville’s ex-wife Audrey. Other guests include Mary, Lady Tresselian’s companion; Ted, Kay’s ever-present friend; Thomas, a family friend who has just returned from spending the war in Africa and Lady Tresselian’s old friend Lord Justice Treves.
When death visits Gull’s Point the house party is thrown into turmoil. It is left to Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Leach and Mr MacWhirter, an ex-detective who is also house guest, to solve the case.
A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Agatha Christie mystery, starring Philip Fox as Detective Inspector Leach with Hugh Bonneville and Marcia Warren.
SIX SUSPECTS
AVAILABLE NOW – BUY TODAY
A BBC Radio 4 full-cast drama from the bestselling author of Q&A, now filmed as the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. Six Suspects, his follow-up novel, has now been made into a BBC Radio 4 full-cast drama starring Rajit Kapur, Zafar Karachiwala and Radhika Mital, and recorded on location in India.
There’s a caste system – even in murder. Vicky Rai, notorious son of a prominent Indian politician, shoots dead a waitress at a trendy Delhi restaurant. Thanks to his mother pulling a few strings, he gets off scot-free. At a lavish society party to celebrate his acquittal he is himself murdered.
Who did it? The Bollywood actress with a guilty secret; the American who came to India to marry his mail-order bride; the mobile-phone thief with big dreams; the tribesman on a quest to recover a stolen relic; or Vicky Rai’s mother, a corrupt politician who will do anything to cling to power…? The police investigation gets nowhere and the murder of Vicky Rai promises to be yet another unsolved mystery in a country full of unsolved crimes.
That is until India’s leading investigative journalist, Arun Advani, steps in to tell the world the shocking truth. It’s a story that takes us on an extraordinary journey into the heart of modern day India. From the producers of the Sony Award-winning BBC Radio 4 drama Q&A.
THE CARLETON HOBBS SHERLOCK HOLMES COLLECTION
AVAILABLE NOW – BUY TODAY
Carleton Hobbs stars as Sherlock Holmes in this box set containing all three volumes of the classic full-cast BBC Radio dramas.
In these twelve classic stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Carleton Hobbs established the ‘sound’ of Sherlock Holmes, with Norman Shelley as his superb Watson. All three volumes of these unique recordings are available together on CD for the first time ever, with specially commissioned new introductions by Nicholas Utechin, former Editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal.
Volume 1: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, Charles Augustus Milverton and The Speckled Band.
Volume 2: The Blue Carbuncle, Silver Blaze, The Final Problem and The Empty House.
Volume 3: The Musgrave Ritual, Black Peter, The Bruce-Partington Plans and The Dancing Men.
AGATHA RAISIN: THE TERRIBLE TOURIST & THE FAIRIES OF FRYFAM
AVAILABLE NOW – BUY TODAY
Penelope Keith stars as Agatha Raisin in two full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramas. After a lifetime spent in public relations, the drinking and smoking one-woman dynamo that is Agatha Raisin struggles to adapt to life in a quiet Cotswold village. Penelope Keith stars again as Agatha Raisin – Miss Marple with attitude – in these two full-cast dramas based on the bestselling books by M.C. Beaton.
The Terrible Tourist: Now that their marriage plans have collapsed, Agatha is furious to find that James is taking a holiday on the island where they were to have their honeymoon. But when she sets out in pursuit of him, she stumbles upon another murder.
The Fairies of Fryfam: Having been hurt by James once too often, Agatha takes a trip to the Cornish village of Fryfam and is soon disturbed by some strange lights at the bottom of the garden.
