John Mortimer
Summer’s Lease

Read by Martin Jarvis

It’s high summer when Molly Pargeter drags her amiably bickering family to a rented Tuscan villa for the holidays. Molly is sure that the house is the perfect setting for their three-week getaway, but soon she becomes fascinated by the lives of the absent owners – and things start to go horribly wrong.

Dick Francis
Driving Force

Read by Tony Britton

These days, retired jump jockey Freddie Croft was happy to leave peril behind and transport horses from their stables to the races - until one of his drivers picked up an unlicensed passenger and brought him back dead. The corpse on the doorstep was Freddie’s unwelcome introduction to the big money conspiracy which threatened his life.

Gwen Moffat
Man Trap

Read by Kara Wilson

In a Highland glen, Ruth Ogilvie is losing a battle to keep her daughter focussed on schoolwork rather than the laird’s student son. The laird is unconcerned about his offspring, as he obsessively pours all his energies into outshining Balmoral when he opens his wife’s castle and grounds to members of the public. But then a string of violent events occurs.

Maeve Binchy
The Lilac Bus

Read by Kate Binchy

Every Friday night Tom Fitzgerald’s minibus is a meeting place for the same cast of seven, who use it to travel home from Dublin to spend the weekend in Rathdoon. These eight short stories, all linked by the common theme of the lilac bus, are woven together by the warmth and compassion that typifies Maeve Binchy’s writing.