Showing results by narrator "Dan Bottomley" in All Categories

Join Stella Starflake Pearl and her three fellow explorers as they trek across the snowy Icelands and come face-to-face with frost fairies, snow queens, outlaw hideouts, unicorns, pygmy dinosaurs and carnivorous cabbages.... When Stella and three other junior explorers get separated from their expedition, will they be able to cross the frozen wilderness and live to tell the tale?

The earth has shifted on its axis and a mysterious dark mark has appeared on the sun—the whole world is in peril! But billionaire tech genius Howard Hansom has a plan... When Grian's sister goes missing he's convinced she has run off to Hansom's new city to help save the world. But when Grian and his two friends Jeffrey and Shelli track her there they find that nothing is quite as it seems. Why is everything so secret? Where is the mysterious Area 13? What does Howard Hansom want with all the people he has enticed to live in his city?

Danny Mack's mates are brilliant: there's his best mate Giraffles (yeh, you read that right), so-called because of his unusually long neck; the MandM twins (you got it - like the chocolate) who are always finishing each other's sentences; and Lucky Success, who, well I reckon you can guess how he got his name. They're the best mates a kid could ask for, and when an epic school trip is announced, they're all properly made up about it. Because school trips are just an excuse to have a big laugh with your mates, right? Erm, wrong.

Ron Fawcett is a natural-born climber. In 1969, while still at school in his native Yorkshire, he tied into a climbing rope for the first time and was instantly hooked. From that moment on, it seemed nothing else in his life mattered nearly as much as his next vertical fix... Fawcett found the pressures of the limelight too much to bear, and at the end of the 1980s he faded from view. Now, for the first time, he tells his extraordinary story, of how his love of nature and the outdoors developed into a passion for climbing that took him to the top - and almost consumed him.

For as long as Alex Neptune can remember, the ocean has been trying to kill him. So he's not too happy when a bunch of sea creatures drag him to the abandoned aquarium on the hill, where an imprisoned water dragon needs his help. But how can he say no to a magical creature? Recruiting his tech-genius best friend Zoe, legend-lover Anil, a sharp-shooting octopus, three acrobatic otters and a thieving seagull, Alex plots a heist to break the dragon out. And suddenly discovers the power of the ocean at his fingertips...

Stella Starflake Pearl is eagerly anticipating her next expedition. Suddenly disaster strikes when Stella's father, Felix, is snatched by a fearsome witch. Stella must bring her magic ice princess tiara to Witch Mountain or she will never see Felix again! But no one ever returns from Witch Mountain.... Stella, Ethan, Shay, Beanie and reluctant Jungle Cat explorer Percival set off into the unknown. They will face terrifying bat caves, poisonous apple groves, outraged vultures, argumentative mushrooms and deranged broomsticks in their quest to rescue Felix.

To love and to cherish, till death did them part... Two desiccated bodies are found in each other's arms in the bricked up room of a derelict Victorian warehouse. After six months of work, the police have nothing and Ridpath is finally called in to investigate. Dubbed the Romeo and Juliet...

In Manchester, a block of flats is burning. The only victim is a middle-aged man, sat watching TV. Are the fire and the man's death an accident or is something more frightening at work? Meanwhile, DI Ridpath is back with his wife and enjoying work at the Coroner's Office, his myeloma still in remission. But the quiet life is soon shattered by a new threat. More corpses start appearing; charred, burnt, silent bodies, strewn in the streets and lodged in buildings. Next to each one is a chilling message sprayed in orange ink.

A web of lies. A confusion of secrets. A maze of murder. In a quiet Manchester suburb, a man sets himself on fire in a petrol station. Nearby, a fourteen-year-old girl murders her mother in cold blood. At the Coroner's Officer, Detective Inspector Ridpath is called in to investigate both of...

Landfill has lived his whole life as a scavenger, running with wooflers, swimming with turtles and feasting on fresh gull. Old Babagoo has always looked after him, on one condition - follow his rules. Never come looking outside. Never rise above the wall. But despite the dangers, Landfill longs to see Outside. And some rules are made to be broken.

Podkin and his sister and baby brother, Paz and Pook, struggle to keep their ragtag clan of refugees safe from enemies who are destroying the forest in an effort to find them. When they are separated from their clan, the siblings encounter the mysterious and mystical creatures who are the heart of the forest itself. As the fate of all rabbitkind hangs in the balance, the youngsters must recruit these new allies and convince feuding clans to come together in a desperate final battle to defeat the diabolical Gorm.

The controversial science that claims to have revolutionised economics. For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimise our own ‘utility’. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to ‘cognitive biases’ with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

This year the secret service made a major mix -up. They mistook a 13-year-old boy called Kevin for a secret agent (I know, so much for an 'intelligence' agency). This was the sort of kid that would try and zip wire across a building and end up falling headfirst into a fountain, with his bum on show. Despite this, it is up to Kevin to save us all from an evil supervillain!

DI Thomas Ridpath is in the process of getting his life back together when everything goes wrong. Caught in a gruesome motorway incident, one question remains: why did nobody else see what happened? Ridpath's investigations soon pulls the police force itself into question, and hints at something even more sinister. With Manchester on the brink of violence unlike anything seen in decades, Ridpath must battle this unprecedented conflict alongside his own demons.

They are waiting for death. He is waiting to kill them. In May 2020, fourteen-year-old Andrew Golding went out for a walk following a row with his mum. He was never seen again. Four years later, when the press discovers police errors in Andrew Golding's case, DI Ridpath is called in to...

Ice princess Stella Starflake and her father Felix are in trouble: President Fogg has expelled them from the Polar Bear Explorers' Club and banned them from going on any further expeditions. Stella's not going to be put off by rules and regulations, though. She knows her friend Shay is in danger of turning into a witch wolf himself, since receiving a deadly bite on their last adventure. It's vital that Stella and her friends set out to find the spellbook that could save his life, even if it means travelling over the cursed Black Ice Bridge.

Alex Neptune is struggling to get to grips with his new oceanic powers...so the last thing he needs is Haven Bay being attacked by pirates in a ship made of rubbish. The marauders are hunting for the missing egg of the elusive water dragon—and Alex is determined to reach it first to stop them stealing its power. Along with friends Zoey and Anil—plus a clumsy seal, a lock-picking hermit crab and some seriously menacing otters—Alex sets out on a treasure hunt to a secret shipwreck where they must face three monstrous challenges.

After the year Aidan and I have had, we needed some respite. My husband is overworked, whilst I'm anxious about the past, so renting a night at this converted barn house in the countryside seems like the perfect place for the pair of us to relax and unwind. It might be situated at the bottom of a large garden, but it's private enough that we don't have to mingle with the homeowners who live nearby. Or at least that's what I thought...

A boy's body is found in a meadow beside the River Mersey. No DNA. No witnesses. No clues. It brings back painful memories of the Moors Murderers. After two weeks, the police have made no progress finding the killer. The one thing they do know; he will kill again. It is a race against time and they are losing. DI Thomas Ridpath has just returned to work. Diagnosed with PTSD and undergoing supervised psychological therapy, he is dragged into the case against his better judgement. When another child is kidnapped, Ridpath must confront his own demons to stop a killer before he strikes again.

A bloodied body is found in a Manchester Immigrant Removal Centre. The investigating officer and the pathologist seem certain: a suicide. But for DI Ridpath something doesn't add up. As the evidence starts to unravel, and with few leads, the pressure is on to find answers before the Inquest is closed. Caught between the police, the coroner and a system that doesn't care, Ridpath isn't making any friends.