Short stories

Reading lists

17 top crime short story collections

Word Monkey

'A delight . . . a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom.' ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The Shadows of London 
 
'Perceptive, wise and illuminating . . . an unmissable farewell.' Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'The most hilarious, life-affirming book you&rsquo;ll read this year.' SAGA magazine 
 
'Wit and wisdom that make every page turn . . . what a fine talent the world has lost.' STARBURST 
 
This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'. 
 
It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favourite (and not-so-favourite) novelists. 
 
But woven into this hugely entertaining and inspiring reflection on a literary life is an altogether darker thread. In Spring 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, Chris was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And yet there is nothing of the misery memoir about Word Monkey. Past and present intermingle as, in prose as light as air, he relates with wry humour and remarkable honesty what he knows will be the final chapter in his story. 
 
Deeply moving, insightful and surprisingly funny, this is Christopher Fowler's life-affirming account of coming to terms with his own mortality. 
 
'A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.' SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries 
 
'Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message . . . his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.' Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME

Clever, wise, heartbreaking and yet also life-affirmingly funny: his literary comic lightness of touch is on a par with Wodehouse.

JOANNE HARRIS, bestselling author of Broken Light and Chocolat

A delight to read - a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom about the strange and miraculous craft of writing. It's the sort of book that makes you want to underline every other sentence. Beautifully written, of course - one would expect no less from Chris - and characterised by its complete lack of self-pity. I hope it sells by the truckload.

ANDREW TAYLOR, bestselling author of The Shadows of London

A delight: perceptive, wise and illuminating on the act of reading (no genre held terrors for him) and, equally, the act of writing. All of this in a book full of disarmingly sardonic gallows humour about his own impending death. An unmissable farewell from the much missed author.

A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.

SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries

Not a hint of Pollyanna here, just the most hilarious, life-affirming book you’ll read this year.

Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message, from the adoration of Dickens to the guilty pleasures of terrible horror movies . . . he was a man with a deeply-felt love (and I don’t use the word lightly) for the arts, both minor and major, and his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.

Peppered throughout with a wit and wisdom that makes every page turn . . . seek him out and discover what a fine talent the world has lost.

Funny and poignant, Word Monkey is full of fascinating insights and is more than just a first-rate memoir . . . a fitting memorial to a terrific writer.

GUARDIAN, Best Crime and Thrillers of 2023

Christopher Fowler was the multiple award-winning author of almost fifty novels and short story collections, including the celebrated Bryant &amp; May mysteries. His other novels include Roofworld, Spanky, The Sand Men and Hot Water. He has also written two acclaimed memoirs, Paperboy (winner of the Green Carnation Prize) and Film Freak, plus The Book of Forgotten Authors and Peculiar London, Bryant and May's singular and eccentric guide to the city. In 2015 Chris was awarded the Crime Writers Association's coveted 'Dagger in the Library' for his body of work. He lived in London and Barcelona. Diagnosed with cancer just as the UK went into lockdown in 2020, Chris died on 2nd March 2023.

Bryant & May’s Peculiar London

One of the glories of the modern crime fiction field? The deliriously eccentric books by Christopher Fowler.

Devilishly clever . . . mordantly funny . . . sometimes heartbreakingly moving.

If you have never entered the curious world of Bryant and May, you're in for a treat.

As the nation's oldest serving detectives, we know more about London than almost anyone. After all, we've been walking its streets and impulsively arresting its citizens for decades. Who better to take you through its less savoury side? 
 We'll be chatting about odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures and hidden pubs. We'll be making all sorts of odd connections and showing you why it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in London. 
 With the help of some of our more disreputable friends, each an argumentative and unreliable expert in his or her own dodgy field, we'll explain why some streets have genders, why only two Londoners got to meet Dracula, how a department store and a prison played tricks on your mind, when a theatre got stranded in the past, how a building vanished in plain sight, what excited Charlotte Brontë about the city and where the devils hide in London. 
 We hope to capture something of the city's restless spirit by wilfully wandering off course, and it goes without saying that we'll bluff and bamboozle you along the way but that's all part of the fun. History is what you remember. London is what you forget (and we've forgotten a lot). So please do join us on this magical mystery tour of our city. Who knows where we'll end up?

Bryant & May - London Bridge is Falling Down

'If you have never entered the curious world of Bryant and May, you're in for a treat.' THE TIMES 
 
It was the kind of story that barely made the news. 
 
When 91-year-old Amelia Hoffman died in her top-floor flat on a busy London road, it's considered an example of what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. 
 
But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs Hoffman was once a government security expert, even though no one can quite remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible murder has been committed. 
 
Mrs Hoffman wasn't the only one at risk. Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London Bridge. 
 
With the help of some of their more certifiable informants, the detectives follow the strangest of clues in an investigation that will lead them through forgotten alleyways to the city's oldest bridge in search of a desperate killer. 
 
But just when the case appears to be solved, they discover that Mrs Hoffman was smarter than anyone imagined. There's a bigger game afoot that could have terrible consequences. 
 
It's time to celebrate Bryant and May's twentieth anniversary as their most lunatic case yet brings death and rebirth to London's most peculiar crimes unit.

One of the glories of the modern crime fiction field? The deliriously eccentric books by Christopher Fowler . . . this exuberantly written entry is as entertaining as any of its predecessors

As always, Fowler does a masterly job of balancing humour with an ingeniously crafted plot. Devoted fans will be more than satisfied.

Christopher Fowler's writing is exquisite. His deep reverence for - and knowledge of - the dark and lonely pathways trodden by centuries of Londoners is compelling . . . the dialogue sparkles and the jokes are laugh-out-loud.'

There is always room for comic crime capers on the bookshelves of discerning readers, with Christopher Fowler's books having long been on the forefront of the subgenre. Here's to many more tales of our intrepid heroes as they solve seemingly impossible crimes in the most entertaining fashion.

A heady mixture combining a fast-paced plot with an agglomeration of oddballs that could have been taken from a Monty Python sketch . . . quirky, witty, wonderfully atmospheric and entertaining . . . absolutely brilliant.'

'If you have never entered the curious world of Bryant and May, you're in for a treat.' THE TIMES 
 
It was the kind of story that barely made the news. 
 
 When 91-year-old Amelia Hoffman died in her top-floor flat on a busy London road, it's considered an example of what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. 
 
 But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs Hoffman was once a government security expert, even though no one can quite remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible murder has been committed. 
 
 Mrs Hoffman wasn't the only one at risk. Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London Bridge. 
 
 With the help of some of their more certifiable informants, the detectives follow the strangest of clues in an investigation that will lead them through forgotten alleyways to the city's oldest bridge in search of a desperate killer. 
 
 But just when the case appears to be solved, they discover that Mrs Hoffman was smarter than anyone imagined. There's a bigger game afoot that could have terrible consequences. 
 
It's time to celebrate Bryant and May's twentieth anniversary as their most lunatic case yet brings death and rebirth to London's most peculiar crimes unit.

Bryant & May - Oranges and Lemons

Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May, assisted by the oddballs and eccentrics of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, return to break rules, infuriate officialdom and maybe, just maybe, catch the criminal in their 19th hugely entertaining and unorthodox new investigation.

'The most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational voice in contemporary British crime fiction, the utterly fabulous Christopher Fowler.' Cathi Unsworth, CRIMESQUAD 
 
It's a Sunday morning, and the outspoken Speaker of the House of Commons has just been crushed under a mountain of citrus fruit . . . 
 
Bizarre accident or something more sinister? The government needs to know because here's a man who knows a thing or two that could compromise its future. 
 
Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit should be on the case, however it seems the PCU is no more with one detective is in hospital, the other gone AWOL with the rest of the team having been dismissed. 
 
But events escalate, and soon a series of brutal yet undeniably clever killings linked to an old English nursery rhyme threaten society's very foundations and out-of-the-blue the PCU is (temporarily) back in business. 
 
And if the two detectives - 'old men in a woke world' - can set aside their differences and discover why some of London's most influential figures are being threatened, they might not only save the unit but also prevent the city from descending into chaos . . .

(Short Stories)

Bryant & May – England’s Finest

The second collection of original and never-before-published stories drawn from the casebooks of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

'Winningly eccentric . . . London, in all its non-homogenous, sprawling splendour, is as much a character as Fowler's sleuthing duo' Barry Forshaw, Financial Times 
 
The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now. 
Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember yesterday, so the newly revealed facts could come as a surprise to everyone, including his exasperated partner John May. 
 
Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul's son discovered buried in the unit's basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners, a Hallowe'en crime in the Post Office Tower, and the impossible death that's the fault of a forgotten London legend. All of the unit's oddest characters are here, plus the detectives' long-suffering sergeant Janice Longbright gets to reveal her own forgotten mystery. 
 
These twelve crimes must be solved without the help of modern technology, mainly because nobody knows how to use it. Expect misunderstood clues, lost evidence, arguments about Dickens, churches, pubs and disorderly conduct from the investigative officers they laughingly call 'England's Finest'! 
 
_______________________ 
 
 
What readers are saying: 
***** 'Another gem from Christopher Fowler' 
 
***** 'I've loved Bryant &amp; May since I first discovered them' 
***** 'A perfect collection of implausibly, improbably impossible mysteries for readers of Bryant and May both old and new'

'Winningly eccentric . . . London, in all its non-homogenous, sprawling splendour, is as much a character as Fowler's sleuthing duo' Barry Forshaw, Financial Times 
 
 The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now. 
Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember yesterday, so the newly revealed facts could come as a surprise to everyone, including his exasperated partner John May. 
 
Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul's son discovered buried in the unit's basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners, a Hallowe'en crime in the Post Office Tower, and the impossible death that's the fault of a forgotten London legend. All of the unit's oddest characters are here, plus the detectives' long-suffering sergeant Janice Longbright gets to reveal her own forgotten mystery. 
 
These twelve crimes must be solved without the help of modern technology, mainly because nobody knows how to use it. Expect misunderstood clues, lost evidence, arguments about Dickens, churches, pubs and disorderly conduct from the investigative officers they laughingly call 'England's Finest'! 
 
_______________________ 
 
 
What readers are saying: 
***** 'Another gem from Christopher Fowler' 
 
***** 'I've loved Bryant &amp; May since I first discovered them' 
***** 'A perfect collection of implausibly, improbably impossible mysteries for readers of Bryant and May both old and new'

(Bryant & May Book 17)

Bryant & May - The Lonely Hour

In London a cunning killer goes about his grim work - a killer who always strikes at 'the lonely hour' - 4am. It falls to detectives Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit to find the method in his madness . . .

In Which Mr May Makes A Mistake And Mr Bryant Goes Into The Dark 
On a rainy winter night outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong part of London, four strangers meet for the first time at 4:00am. 
A few weeks later the body of an Indian textile worker is found hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hampstead Heath. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. The victim was found surrounded by the paraphernalia of black magic, and so Arthur Bryant and John May set off to question experts in the field. 
But the case is not what it appears. When another victim seemingly commits suicide, it becomes clear that in the London night is a killer who knows what people fear most. And he always strikes at 4:00am. 
In order to catch him, the PCU must switch to night shifts, but still the team draws a blank. John May takes a technological approach, Arthur Bryant goes in search of academics and misfits for help, for this is becoming a case that reveals impossibilities at every turn, not least that there's no indication of what the victims might have done to attract the attentions of a murderer that doesn’t seem to exist. But impossibilities are what the Peculiar Crimes Unit does best. 
As they explore a night city where all the normal rules are upended, they’re drawn deeper into a case that involves murder, arson, kidnap, blackmail, bats and the psychological effects of loneliness on Londoners. It's a trail that takes them from the poorest part of the East End to the wealthiest homes in North London - an investigation that can only end in tragedy…

The Lonely Hour ends on the most shocking cliffhanger yet – but if anyone can pull off the impossible, it's the most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational voice in contemporary British crime fiction, the utterly fabulous Christopher Fowler.

In Which Mr May Makes A Mistake And Mr Bryant Goes Into The Dark 
 
Three deaths, seemingly unconnected but for one thing: each happened at precisely four a.m. - the lonely hour . . . 
 
At four in the morning outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong part of London, four strangers meet for the first time. A few weeks later a body is found on Hampstead Heath, hanging upside down and surrounded by the paraphernalia of black magic. Then a young man is killed on a London bridge and a woman is attacked in her modern (and secure) luxury apartment. 
 
To catch this killer, Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit switch to working nights. While John May takes a technological approach, Arthur Bryant calls upon sundry eccentrics and misfits for help solving what seems an impossible case. 
 
But impossible is what the PCU does best. As they draw back the curtain on a city at night, Bryant and May follow a trail of murder, arson, blackmail, kidnap, loneliness and . . . bats. 
 
‘The most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational voice in contemporary British crime fiction’ 
CATHI UNSWORTH 
 
‘One of our most unorthodox and entertaining writers’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
‘I love the wit and playfulness of the Bryant &amp; May books’ ANNE CLEEVES

(Bryant & May Book 16)

Bryant & May – Hall of Mirrors

Arthur Bryant and John May are Golden Age detectives living in the modern world. Together they head up the Peculiar Crimes Unit, ready to solve any of the weird and wonderful crimes that fall across their desks.

Fans of Christopher Fowler's gloriously inventive, imaginative series are in for a period treat - Hall of Mirrors is set in 1969 during a country house weekend, with a killer at large and featuring a youthful and unexpectedly sprightly Arthur Bryant and John May!

The year is 1969 and ten guests are about to enjoy a country house weekend at Tavistock Hall. But one amongst them is harbouring thoughts of murder. . . 
The guests also include the young detectives Arthur Bryant and John May – undercover, in disguise and tasked with protecting Monty Hatton-Jones, a whistle-blower turning Queen’s evidence in a massive bribery trial. Luckily, they’ve got a decent chap on the inside who can help them – the one-armed Brigadier, Nigel ‘Fruity’ Metcalf. 
The scene is set for what could be the perfect country house murder mystery, except that this particular get-together is nothing like a Golden Age classic. For the good times are, it seems, coming to an end. The house’s owner – a penniless, dope-smoking aristocrat – is intent on selling the estate (complete with its own hippy encampment) to a secretive millionaire but the weekend has only just started when the millionaire goes missing and murder is on the cards. But army manoeuvres have closed the only access road and without a forensic examiner, Bryant and May can’t solve the case. It’s when a falling gargoyle fells another guest that the two incognito detectives decide to place their future reputations on the line. And in the process discover that in Swinging Britain nothing is quite what it seems… 
So gentle reader, you are cordially invited to a weekend in the country. Expect murder, madness and mayhem in the mansion!

Fowler always manages to keep things fresh, and Hall of Mirrors is no exception . . . as well written and original as ever.

'Laugh-out-loud funny . . . long-running, eccentric and consistently entertaining.

The prequel to end all prequels, wonderfully literate, fully of great dialogue and, at times, very poignant. Top quality entertainment.

Distinctively bonkers while never straying away from an intriguing mystery that keeps the reader guessing . . . the resolution is a bit of a cracker . . . another winner from Christopher Fowler and his merry curmudgeons . . . Highly Recommended.

More fully fleshed-out suspects, clues, red herrings, twists, and honest mystery and detection than in the last three whodunits you read.

Fowler evokes the period as neatly as he crafts the plot.

How easy it is to forget how good a series this is . . . Fowler has created such an effective cast of characters over the course of the series that you can’t help but be drawn into their world. An engrossing page turner of a book, with characters that you care about and a plot to keep you thinking.

The year is 1969 and ten guests are about to enjoy a country house weekend at Tavistock Hall. But one amongst them is harbouring thoughts of murder. . . 
 
The guests also include the young detectives Arthur Bryant and John May – undercover, in disguise and tasked with protecting Monty Hatton-Jones, a whistle-blower turning Queen’s evidence in a massive bribery trial. Luckily, they’ve got a decent chap on the inside who can help them – the one-armed Brigadier, Nigel ‘Fruity’ Metcalf. 
 
The house’s owner – a penniless, dope-smoking aristocrat – is intent on selling the estate (complete with its own hippy encampment) to a secretive millionaire but the weekend has only just started when the millionaire goes missing and murder is on the cards. But army manoeuvres have closed the only access road and without a forensic examiner, Bryant and May can’t solve the case. It’s when a falling gargoyle fells another guest that the two incognito detectives decide to place their future reputations on the line. And in the process discover that in Swinging Britain nothing is quite what it seems… 
 
So gentle reader, you are cordially invited to a weekend in the country. Expect murder, madness and mayhem in the mansion!

(Bryant & May Book 15)

Bryant & May - Wild Chamber

The fourteenth novel in Christopher Fowler's gloriously inventive, imaginative series featuring detectives Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit is a treat for readers as murder and scandal lead the team to delve into the history of London's wild spaces, it's parks and gardens . . .

Probably the most popular detective duo since the passing of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe.

I’ll make a prediction now – Wild Chamber will be in my top five books for 2017. Bryant and May continue to be at the top of their game, and in some ways the novels are improving with age . . . there’s no author quite like Christopher Fowler, and there are no characters quite like Arthur Bryant and John May. There are a multitude of facets to Wild Chamber which make it stand out . . . Fowler is London born and bred, and his love for the city and all its eccentricities clearly comes through in the narrative. .

A joy to read. It's intelligent crime fiction that’s accessible to everyone.

Delightfully entertaining . . .  I for one, think this is incredibly clever. Fowler richly deserves his CWA Library Award.

These books are clever, inventive and wonderfully original – and we simply can’t get enough of them. Prepare to be enchanted.

Fowler is, among other things, a comic genius. He mines the rich and productive seam of peculiarly English comedy which gave us George and Weedon Grossmith, J B ‘Beachcomber’ Morton, the sublime pretensions of Anthony Aloysius Hancock and the surreal world of Basil Fawlty. The book is full of great gags and very good one-liners. Such is the rich entertainment that Fowler serves up – bravura writing, poignancy, compassion, complex plotting, biting humour and a unique view of London’s landscape – that it doesn’t really matter who did what to whom, but he stays staunch and true to the crime fiction genre and gives us the answer to the intricate whodunnit he has constructed. If you love an intriguing murder plot, sparkling humour, wonderful scene-setting and brilliantly stylish writing, then get hold of a copy of this. You won’t be sorry.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that these novels are on the cosy side. Despite the artful plotting, the nostalgic view of an England we have lost, the in-jokes, and the warmth Fowler shares with anyone who loves London, there is dark side. Death is a frequent caller, and when we answer the door, he is not draped in a discreet undertaker’s sheet, but is red in tooth and claw. Christopher Fowler is unique in contemporary English fiction. He blends Golden Age crime with the poetic insights of John Betjeman, the gimlet eye of Charles Dickens and Peter Ackroyd’s dark nostalgia.

Our story begins at the end of an investigation, as the members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit race to catch a killer near London Bridge Station in the rain, not realising that they’re about to cause a bizarre accident just yards away from the crime scene. And it will have repercussions for them all… 
One year later, in an exclusive London crescent, a woman walks her dog – but she’s being watched. When she’s found dead, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. Why? Because the method of death is odd, the gardens are locked, the killer had no way in - or out - and the dog has disappeared. 
So a typical case for Bryant &amp; May. But the hows and whys of the murder are not the only mysteries surrounding the dead woman - there's a missing husband and a lost nanny to puzzle over too. And it seems very like that the killer is preparing to strike again. 
As Arthur Bryant delves in to the history of London’s ‘wild chambers’ - its extraordinary parks and gardens, John May and the rest of the team seem to have caused a national scandal. If no-one is safe then all of London’s open spaces must be closed… 
With the PCU placed under house arrest, only Arthur Bryant remains at liberty – but can a hallucinating old codger catch the criminal and save the unit before it’s too late?

(Bryant & May Book 14)

Bryant & May - Strange Tide

Eccentric, octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit return in mystery No.13 from the multi-award-winning Christopher Fowler: lucky for all Bryant &amp; May fans!

Be entertained, challenged and entranced by this wonderful book.

Fiendishly fun and rich in London lore, Bryant &amp; May - Strange Tide is Christopher Fowler at his best, delivering more twists and turns than the Thames itself.

The river Thames is London’s most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no-one can understand how she came to be drowned there. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public place. 
Soon they discover that the river is giving up other victims, but as the investigation extends from the coast of Libya to the nightclubs of North London, it proves as murkily sinister as the Thames itself. That’s only part of the problem; Bryant’s rapidly deteriorating condition prevents him from handling the case, and he is confined to home. To make matters worse, May makes a fatal error of judgement that knocks him out of action and places everyone at risk. 
With the PCU staff baffled as much by their own detectives as the case, the only people who can help now are the battery of eccentrics Bryant keeps listed in his diary, but will their arcane knowledge save the day or make matters even worse? Soon there’s a clear suspect in everyone’s sights – the only thing that’s missing is any scrap of evidence. 
As the detectives’ disastrous investigation comes unstuck, the whole team gets involved in some serious messing about on the river. In an adventure that’s as twisting as the river upon which it’s set, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes Unit when it’s over?

Short Stories

Frightening

A unique collection of tales and stories (and even a play) from the acclaimed, multi-award-winning author that have been brought together and are published together for the first time in any form.

Pure pleasure . . . short sharp shocks delivered with astonishing precision and dark delight. Christopher Fowler is a modern master of the form.

Christopher Fowler’s latest collection contains fourteen stories in new formats that have never been published in print collections, including a play, two SF tales, a historical-supernatural story, some that began life inside other novels, only to be cut or rewritten, and morphed into tales like ‘The Scent Of Roses’, together with several that have not seen the light of day in any form. Now they all have finally found their place in Frightening…

Red Gloves Vols. 1 & 2

Brought together in a single ebook edition, two collections of classic horror stories from the singular pen of Christopher Fowler - one set in London, the other in locations around the world - comprising 25 chilling, compelling, skin-prickling tales in all.

Fowler's collections are laced with unease.  He turns to the fantastical to realize a system of karmic retribution. There is a note of innocence in his stories; though they deal with nastiness, they bear out the author's hope for justice.

RED GLOVES 1: DEVILRY - THE LONDON HORRORS 
The first collection contains stories set in London, where deceptively ordinary events like an evening in a pub or a night on the town have terrifying consequences. Here you'll find hauntings, revenges, murders, monstrosities, redemptions, and the dark hands of the urban night reaching out to seize the unwary. And to top it off, there's a short story featuring disreputable detectives Bryant &amp; May. 
 
RED GLOVES 2: INFERNAL - THE WORLD HORRORS 
The second collections comprises stories set in exotic locations around the world. Once more, deceptively ordinary events and occasions - a holiday in the Far East or a trip to the French Riviera, for example - cause terrifying fates to unfold. Here, innocent travellers find themselves confronting accidents, tragedies, murders, nightmares and epiphanies as they wander far from home. And again, there's a short story featuring those misfits from the Peculiar Crimes Unit, detectives Bryant &amp; May.

Demonized

A further collection of dark and disturbing short stories.

Thrillingly taut, perverse and nasty imaginings.

Fowler's strength lies in the way he unveils the darker side of the ordinary: DEMONIZED is scary precisely because it's so familiar.

Strange things don't only happen when you are asleep. They happen in daylight, in crowded cities, even in the countryside. Things that seem innocent one minute are demonized the next, and here are seventeen stories to prove it. 
 
A journalist spends a nerve-wracking weekend in the company of Hitler and his Nazi supremos. A tropical holiday takes a nasty turn thanks to a troupe of monkeys; and a waitress challenges a sinister customer in an all-night diner. A tailor plots to escape his execution; London is overrun with rats; serial killers fall in love; and revenge backfires on the unfaithful. As our lives and deaths grow ever stranger, housewives, students and executives all find themselves in situations that become increasingly disturbing. Fowler's powerful narratives are subtly affecting and make you think twice about the way you look at the world around you.

Old Devil Moon

A collection of uniquely disturbing short stories.

Fowler repeatedly challenges the reader to redraw the boundaries between innocence and malevolence, rationality and paranoia.  His strength lies in the way he unveils the darker side of the ordinary; fresh and thought-provoking, elegant and playful.

Fowler hides a powerful narrative in a slyly experimental text to superb effect.

A geologist trapped int a town without water is lured into a desperate escape plan. 
A boy plans a murder in an eerie funfair. 
A cop witnesses an inexplicable plague of madness. 
A teenager learns a deadly trick with his mobile phone. 
A woman unlocks a childhood secret with the aid of old comic books. 
A secret museum opens only at night... 
 
OLD DEVIL MOON is Christopher Fowler's tenth collection of uniquely disturbing short stories, and contains the blackest humour and the darkest fears, set in worlds we walk through each day but rarely see.

The Devil in Me

More dark short stories from Christopher Fowler.

A teacher loses one of her pupils somewhere in the London Underground. 
A catwalk model reveals the grisly secret of looking good. 
Slacker friends are forced into action over an accidental murder. 
A bomb's aftershock is felt fifty years later. 
Sex toys become instruments of fate. 
The suburbs are besieged, star scandals are revealed, epic tragedy turns to triumph and a cry for help flares briefly in the night... 
 
Black comedy, high farce, dark revelations...they all go to make up Christopher Fowler's mind-blowing collection of immoral tales.

Personal Demons

Fowler consistently scores points with his suave, mocking and ultimately inclusive voice.  His latest collection of short stories shows he has lost none of his venom.

Ian McEwan used to mine a similar seam.  Fowler does it better.

Incarceration, incantations, revenge, romance and the end of the world - twice.  PERSONAL DEMONS are Christopher Fowler's tales of the fantastic and the wilder side of modern urban living.  They reflect the rich and various talents of a writer called 'ghoulishly irresistible'.

A hotel offers a taboo service for its troubled clients. 
A young man must wind a thousand clocks before sunset. 
A vampire library attacks its readers. 
A shy young man loses a dog and discovers the cutlery of the Marquis de Sade. 
A lottery winner soon wishes he hadn't won. 
Deranged office workers take over a building

City Jitters

Terror in the streets, darkness in the alleys... a new generation of horrors to traumatise urban man.

Beyond City Limits... 
 
there are no eyeless, crawling things in this town, no vampire slumbers unseen behind the rusting rails of the city necropolis. 
 
Here are only car parks, and nightclubs, and taxi cabs. The pavements are bright and thronging, people laugh and telephones ring. 
 
But there is another world within the city, where reality may suddenly skip a heartbeat, where for a moment there is no recognition of the face in the mirror. 
 
For in the very ordinariness of the city there lurks its biggest terror...

Sharper Knives

Now published in ebook format for the first time, a collection of classic short, dark – sometimes darkly funny – tales of urban unease from the acclaimed author of Roofworld, Spanky and the Bryant &amp; May mysteries.

An Alan Bennett-like enjoyment of domestic trivia in Fowler's work... provides a foil for the horror and an unexpected seam of humour.

[Christopher Fowler is] a great guide to the dark side.

One of the hippest and sharpest horror writers around.

Take a trip to the cutting edge of terror and discover: 
 
- Why an obsession with sixties British comedy stars can make you a murderer ... 
 
- The mother who dreads the sound of hymns - with good reason. 
 
- How schooldays can be the weirdest days of your life. 
 
- A couple who regularly visit the supermarket from Hell... 
 
- And why people who collect table-mats are dangerous - only when they're dead...

Flesh Wounds

Now published in ebook format for the first time, a collection of classic short, dark – sometimes darkly funny – tales of urban unease from the acclaimed author of Roofworld, Spanky and the Bryant &amp; May mysteries.

Christopher Fowler is a great guide to the darkside.

As cool and enjoyable as the beers served in the trendiest bars.

The best pulp fiction writer this side of Stephen King

Strong stomachs and nerves of steel are required.

A popular businessman awakes one morning to discover that everyone hates him. A young woman must surrender her virginity to a grotesque enemy in order to fulfil her family's destiny. An extraordinary chain of events is set in motion when a cocktail cabinet falls out of the sky and kills a farmer. A depressed man decides to make his suicide the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him... 
 
Oozing paranoia, black humour and a certain amount of old-fashioned gore, this is a collection of classic Christopher Fowler short stories - each telling a chilling tale of desperate individuals who learn the hard way that ...flesh wounds.

The Bureau of Lost Souls

A classic collection of dark tales of urban unease from the genius pen of Christopher Fowler - now available once more in digital format, and with an introduction by Joanne Harris.

Clever horror stories where the go-getters get their comeuppance.

A collection of twelve darkly disturbing, twisted stories from the author of Roofworld, Spanky and the acclaimed Bryant and May novels. But don't expect to read about vampires, werewolves, or ghouls or ghosts, or dolls coming to life or brain-eating zombies. And as for lake-dwelling demons, malevolent spirits, misogynistic slashers or children locked in attics, you can forget them... 
Instead, here you have twelve stories of desperate people in seemingly ordinary situations - workers in offices, friends in pubs, husbands and wives in apartments and houses. All of them the most unlikely - and therefore the most likely - to find themselves trapped within their own personal, private, unimaginable, nerve-fracturing, bizarre and yes, deadly visions of Hell...

(Bryant & May Book 13, Short Stories)

Bryant & May - London's Glory

The first-ever collection of Bryant &amp; May stories not only sheds light on eleven classic cases (including the CWA Short Story Dagger shortlisted 'Bryant and May and the Nameless Woman') but also contains everything you need to know about the two octogenarian detectives and the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

In every detective’s life there are cases that can’t be discussed, and throughout the Bryant &amp; May novels there have been mentions of some of these such as the Deptford Demon or the Little Italy Whelk Smuggling Scandal. 
Now Arthur Bryant has decided to open the files on eleven of these previously unseen investigations that required the collective genius and unique modus operandi of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit - investigations that range from different times (London during the Great Smog) and a variety of places: a circus freak show, on board a London Tour Bus and even a yacht off the coast of Turkey. 
And in addition to these eleven classic cases, readers are also given a privileged look inside the Peculiar Crimes Unit (literally, with a cut away drawing of their offices), a guide to the characters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and access to the contents of Arthur Bryant’s highly individual library.

Witty, engaging mix of crime drama and comedy that's also an esoteric history of London.

Off-kilter, witty and unorthodox...winningly eccentric...London, in all its non-homogenous, sprawling splendour, is as much a character as Fowler's sleuthing duo.

Wonderful . . . not only are there eleven short stories featuring our elderly and eccentric detectives, but there are notes on all the regulars and also a divine cartoon of the Peculiar Crimes Unit premises . . . Fowler delivers a feast of cases with that slightly skew-whiff view. This really is great stuff

Christopher Fowler

A twist on Mervyn Peake's gothic masterpiece, Gormenghast . . .there is huge narrative energy in the plotting and a vast tapestry of characters . . . The Foot on the Crown caps a dazzling career.

While the fantasy genre may rule the roost at present, it’s clear from just a few pages . . . that The Foot on the Crown might have shaped the current genre had it appeared earlier. Exhilarating, panoramic, sporting the kind of eccentricity of characterisation that was always the writer’s stock in trade, this might almost be called a final peroration to a spectacular career.

Wit and wisdom that make every page turn.

Quirky, touching, profound and utterly original...a gripping page-turner.

It is said a legend is just a beautiful lie... 
 
In the second half of the first millennium, the legends say that London disappeared for over four hundred years. We know almost nothing about what happened during that time. But if we could shine a light on the city's ruined walls, we would be in for a shock. 
 
The Romans are long forgotten. It is now King Scarabold who rules what little remains of the city, together with his over-entitled daughter Giniva, her effete brother Leperdandy and their wayward, lunatic relatives - all squabbling and fighting amongst themselves for the future of their corrupted dynasty while trying to hide their most terrible secret. 
 
And ranged against Scarabold is a horde of bitter enemies from both without and within his dysfunctional household - the eerie Sheathwing, Lord Carapace Earl of Beetles, the warlike nuns of Étranges Cadeaux, a primate called M'Lin, Orobus the serpent, the terrifying Mater Moribund and the sinister child-spies Spackle and Peut - united in their desire to bring king's troubled reign to a bloody end. 
 
But the arrival of a mysterious outsider into the midst of the beleaguered Scarabold's snake-pit of a court that seems to offer a semblance of hope. The stranger's name is Watborn and he is a birdcatcher - strong, silent, he will infiltrate the royal family for a purpose that is all of his own . . . 
 
As fiendishly-armed warriors gather beneath the walls, the battle for London, its body and its soul as much as its bricks and mortar, is about to begin - and who will be left unscathed at the field's end?

Christopher Fowler

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