Philip Palmer

All ten episodes of the compelling BBC radio thriller about art forger Daniel Ballantyne and his biographer and nemesis, Jessica Brown. Daniel Ballantyne: monster and angel, thief and conman, genius - and murderer?

Newly released from Wormwood Scrubs, and dying of cancer, notorious art forger Daniel Ballantyne agrees to help art critic Jessica Brown write his biography. But as Jessica digs deeper into his life, she realises that nearly everything he's told her is a lie, and behind his charming persona is a man capable of almost anything. Trapped in a cat-and-mouse game with a master manipulator, Jessica finds herself putting her reputation - and her life - on the line...

A gritty thriller set behind the Iron Curtain in 1960s Hungary

Budapest, 1963. Special Investigator Bertalan Lazar and his wife, spymaster Franciska Lazar, face formidable challenges as they try to navigate a path through the dangerous underworld of Cold War-era Hungary. Catching the criminals is difficult enough, but there are other more threatening battles raging in higher places.

In these 16 episodes, Bertalan must investigate the murder of a former member of the secret police, fight a turf war as he tries to find a child killer, probe a seemingly straightforward case of GBH that leads him to a rogue cop and enter the uncharted territory of Budapest's underground drugs scene after a rock musician is found dead.

Written by Philip Palmer, this gripping, atmospheric drama expertly conjures up the tense, paranoid world of Communist Hungary, where dissidence was dangerous, the truth was hard to find and pursuing justice could get you killed. Leo Bill stars as Bertalan and Clare Corbett as Franciska, with Andy Linden as Tibor Farkas and Joseph Ayre as Jozsef Szabados.

The episodes in this collection are:

The Wolf
The Old Days
Behind the Wall
Waiting by the River
Heroes
Gellert Hill
Spider's Web
Carnaby Street
Gypsy Dancers
Grandmother's Footsteps
Mad Dog
The Light of Dawn
The Great Society
Red Pen
The Great Tree Gang
The Magical Magyars

After leaving the British Army, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley Shoreham became a Consultant Subject Matter Expert: he creates war games for training purposes. Fictional they may be, but the higher the level of authenticity, the greater their value to the participants. And when governments and major corporations are paying for training they expect a high return for their money. The games may only be a simulation, but the participants are about to find out that the consequences are rather more real than they would like.