Showing results by narrator "Terry Wale" in All Categories

When a valuable cargo ship is abandoned in the mid-Atlantic, Captain Barling of the SS Hopeful Enterprise has his own special reasons for wishing to tow it into port. But is he justified in risking men's lives for the sake of his own desires? Shipmate Adam Loder thinks it is nothing but a wild goose chase and chief engineer Jonah Madden is worried about his ailing engines; but Charlie Wilson is hiding a deeper concern.

One of the most important attributes of a prospective candidate for the U.S. presidency is that of being clean; not to have any dirt in your background, present or past. Senator William S. Gaullicauder appeared to fit the bill perfectly in this respect. But then a skeleton came rattling out of an English cupboard, threatening the senator’s squeaky clean reputation. The story had to be suppressed, and fast. But competing interests were involved, and violence and murder would ensue.

Bearing military information that could save 30,000 lives, John Farjeon sets off through the Malayan jungle. His duty is clearcut – to rendezvous with the Allied invasion force. Nothing short of the Japs can stop him. But here are other obligations beyond patriotism. Like the obligation a man feels to a woman in danger. And when Farjeon discovers a beautiful Eurasian with two children in her care he is faced with an agonising decision.

When Detective Sergeant Frank Devon was sent to the West Indian island of St Joseph on an exchange assignment, he was told that it would be more of a holiday in the sun than work. And so it would have been, if he had not started looking beyond the limits of his authorised activities. He began to observe certain goings-on that seemed highly suspicious; but when he reported his findings he was met with either indifference or outright disapproval.

What could make a successful, happily married man shoot himself? What could make a young artist on the brink of fame throw himself from a window to his death? These are the questions that are faced by Chief Inspector Lamb and his sergeant, Cogan. Neither victim left a note behind, and it appears that nothing untoward had occurred in the weeks preceding their deaths. But something must have led them to take such drastic action, and Lamb intends to find out what it was.

English adventurer Harvey Landon is alone in New York - wanted by the police and with only a few dollars in his pocket. Then Theodore Cranefield offers him a job that he can't afford to refuse. Soon he is driving south with a gunman named Gregg to a rendezvous in Florida with the so-called El Aguila, Ramon Arturo Alvarez, and the tough young Pete. The drama swiftly moves across the hurricane-swept Gulf of Mexico to a country shortly to be ravaged by a volcanic eruption, an earthquake and a revolution....

Harry Banner turns up in London one November evening having just got back from Venezuela. He wants to see Robert Cade, a man he'd known six years earlier in Buenos Aires. He needs to ask him for a small favour: to keep a parcel until he calls back for it. The trouble is, Banner never does call back. The next morning he is found dead in his hotel room with a stab wound to his chest.

Captain Christiannsen had a prejudice against having women on his ship - but in the case of Wren Mary Lou, his prejudice was misplaced. Mary Lou, as well as being young, beautiful, and with a natural gift for what she called "having fun", was a girl of resource who could face reality. Resourceful when the Gangerwolf was torpedoed and its survivors mercilessly machine-gunned. Realistic when she and her companions faced a brutal ultimatum!

It was nearing the end of the road for The Merrymakers. Such companies of entertainers touring the towns and villages of East Anglia were finding things more and more difficult. For Howard Layton, player-manager of the troupe, it was a worrying time. But it was the murder of the bright young star of the show that proved to be the hardest blow he had to bear. For Debbie was his own daughter, and he and his wife Gloria had once had ambitious plans for her career on the stage.

The drug trade route stretched from London across Europe and part of Asia to the borders of Afghanistan. Investigating one part of it cost the life of a police detective name George Lacon. Although his death was reportedly suicide, Detective Inspector Marler felt certain it was murder. But to trace the murderers proved a difficult task.

Alan Caley was far from delighted to receive a phone call from his old school pal Chuck Brogan, inviting him to lunch. It was some time since he had last seen Brogan and he remembered that the man had taken part in a gold robbery and been sent to prison for a number of years. Caley was reluctant to accept, Brogan was persuasive and hinted that the meeting might turn out to be to Caley's advantage - financially.

When Peter Hadley, second mate of the British tramp steamer Ocean Waif, goes ashore in Philadelphia looking for the sister from whom he has heard nothing for two years, he quickly finds himself caught up in a web of mystery and deceit. It does not take him long to realise that his own life is in danger. But Hadley is a tough customer and knows how to look after himself. His inquiries bring him into contact with a number of colourful, bizarre and dangerous characters who both help and hinder him in his search.

Sometimes, in his own mind, Keele referred to himself as “The Booking Clerk”. This was a rather macabre private joke since the tickets he issued were all one-way. Yet whatever he was called, his was a profitable occupation. The time came, however, when he wished to leave it. Miss Rona Wickham had entered his life, and the role he played hitherto was incompatible with his association with her. Unfortunately, he found that getting out was not as easy as he had hoped.

Kemp blamed himself: he should have kept more closely in touch with his younger sister. Now it appears that Lorna has gone off to Colombia with a man named Roberto Vargas. But Kemp finds the story hard to swallow - there's something fishy about it.

Victorian London is gripped by fear as a serial killer slays an apparently random victim on Hampstead Heath every month. Two men begin to suspect a mysterious link between the victims: Major Henry Steele and ex-sergeant Mason have been discreetly retired from Military Intelligence and now work as private investigators, and are helping Scotland Yard hunt the so-called Heath Maniac.

Steven Drury, a respectable barrister, is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Returning to his car after a late-night party, he is knocked to the ground. He catches a clear glimpse of his assailant’s face when the man opens his car door to flee. It is enough for him to identify his attacker, Daniel Fitch, in a police line-up. But, unluckily for Drury, Fitch was running from a robbery gone wrong, one in which he murdered a jeweller. Fitch isn’t going to go down without a fight.