Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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Graham Masterton

The first body was found in Europe. She had once been a beautiful young girl, but with exquisite skill someone had carefully teased the skin entirely away from her body, leaving nothing but a flayed and bloody carcass. A full examination of her ruined body reveals an horrific truth: She had been skinned alive. The second blood-raw corpse turned up in New England. Followed soon after by another, this time a victim of extreme decomposition, a mess of flesh convulsing with maggots. 
 
When a mysterious, crumbling painting is implicated in the deaths it seems that the investigating team has resorted to madness. But this rotten painting hides a terrifying family secret...

Family Portrait

Horror

Sara B. Elfgren

Mats Strandberg

In the Swedish town of Engelsfors, a mysterious forcedraws seven teenagers together. They are the Chosen Ones, and they have been chosen to drive back the demons that threaten to overwhelm the world

One night, when a strange red moon fills the sky, six school girls find themselves in an abandoned theme park, drawn there by a mysterious force. A student has just been found dead. Everyone suspects suicide. Everyone - except them. 
 
In that derelict fairground an ancient prophecy is revealed. They are The Chosen Ones, a group of witches, bound together by a power, one which could destroy them all. But they soon learn that despite their differences they need each other in order to master the forces that have been awakened within them. 
 
High school is now a matter of life and death. Because the killing has only just begun.

The Circle

Lynne Truss

By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful. 
 
The scene: a cottage on the coast on a windy evening. Inside, a room with curtains drawn. Tea has just been made. A kettle still steams. 
 
Under a pool of yellow light, two figures face each other across a kitchen table. A man and a cat. 
 
The story about to be related is so unusual yet so terrifyingly plausible that it demands to be told in a single sitting. 
 
The man clears his throat, and leans forward, expectant. 
 
'Shall we begin?' says the cat ...

Cat out of Hell

Guy Adams

He is raising the poker again and Anna bites her lower lip so hard she chokes a little in the blood that runs down her throat... 
 
On a cold, wet night recently widowed psychology lecturer John Pritchard visits spiritualist Aida Golding with his son. Although wary something has driven him here. And he is drawn to a troubled young woman who is trying to contact her child. Something about her intrigues him and despite his doubts he continues to attend meetings. 
 
One night at an intimate séance in Aida's house the lights go out and one of the group is brutally murdered. John has his suspicions but he can't prove anything. He senses that Aida has some hold over the girl and he offers her a place of refuge in his home. But the past haunts Anna in the most chilling of ways. And all too soon John realises he's made a terrible mistake...

Hands of the Ripper

It is said that a mirror can trap a person's soul... 
 
Martin Williams is a broke, two-bit screenwriter living in Hollywood, but when he finds the very mirror that once hung in the house of a murdered 1930s child star, he happily spends all he has on it. He has long obsessed over the tragic story of Boofuls, a beautiful and successful actor who was slaughtered and dismembered by his grandmother. 
 
However, he soon discovers that this dream buy is in fact a living nightmare; the mirror was not only in Boofuls house, but witness to the death of this blond-haired and angelic child, which in turn has created a horrific and devastating portal to a hellish parallel universe. So when Martin's landlord loses his grandson it is soon apparent that the mirror is responsible. But if a little boy has gone into the mirror, what on earth is going to come out?

Mirror

Mark Morris

‘Your children will die. Your community will die. To give me back my life.’ 
 
The small rural community of Shettle has fallen into a decline. It is rife with crime and its inhabitants plagued by ill-fortune. When the Circus of Nights arrives the people are drawn to it like moths to a flame: it’s as though they are bewitched. 
 
Only four men realise that there is something terribly wrong. And as the town is enclosed in a barrier of ‘sickness’ through which no one can enter or leave, they must do their utmost to protect their loved ones, before it’s too late...

Vampire Circus

'What manner of monster can wreak such damage? I only hope you know how it can be stopped.' 
 
The peace of an English village is shattered when a young girl withers before her friend's eyes, becoming but dust and bones. Witnessing this terrifying transformation, local physician Dr Marcus fears the village has been cursed by the presence of evil. He immediately summons his old army friend, the mysterious but powerful vampire hunter, Kronos. 
 
Together with the help of his assistant Professor Grost, Kronos has dedicated his whole life to destroying vampires. He knows that there is nothing so varied and deadly. With a vampire nothing is certain, especially how one might be able to kill it. 
 
As more and more villagers fall prey to this deadly curse, time is against him. And when it comes dangerously close to home, Kronos is faced with a terrible choice...

Kronos

THE CHOSEN ONES are about to start their second year in senior high school. The whole summer break they have held their breaths waiting for the demons’ next move. But the threat shows up from another direction, somewhere they could never have foreseen. 
 
It becomes more and more obvious that something is very, very wrong in Engelsfors. The past is woven together with the present. The living meet the dead. THE CHOSEN ONES are tied even closer together and are once again reminded that magic cannot ease unhappy love or mend broken hearts...

Fire

Peter Curtis

Walwyk seemed a dream village to the new schoolteacher, Miss Mayfield. But dreams can change into nightmares... 
 
When one of her students accuses his friend Ethel's grandmother of abusing her, Miss Mayfield cannot let it go. But Ethel won't say anything, despite the evidence of Miss Mayfield's own eyes. But as she attempts to get to the truth of the matter, she stumbles on something far more sinister. Walwyk seems to be in the grip of a centuries-old evil, and anybody who questions events in the village does not last long. 
 
Death stalks more than one victim, and Miss Mayfield begins to realise that if she's not careful, she will be the next to die...

The Witches

The quaint little seaside town of Granitehead seemed like a perfect place for John and Jane Trenton to start their life together. But disaster strikes and Jane and their unborn child are killed. John's grief is total, so when he starts to see the ghostly apparition of his wife he almost welcomes this supernatural phenomenon. 
 
Yet all is not what it seems, and this sinister spirit is not Jane, but something altogether evil and terrifying. In a bid to rid himself of this horrific spectre he soon finds that many more in the town have been victims of unwanted visitations. And when he discovers the body of a local busybody, impossibly impaled on a still hanging chandelier, he knows something must be done. But how do you kill the undead? 
 
As he searches for an explanation he uncovers a link to a mysterious ship, lost around the time of the nearby Salem witch trials. For three centuries the rotting wreck of the David Dark has lain beneath waves, but an awful secret is concealed in the chill waters...

The Pariah

Sophie Hannah

Louise's seven year old son has been sent away to boarding school against her wishes, and she misses him desperately. 
 
And her neighbour from hell is keeping her awake at night by playing loud, intrusive music. 
 
So when the chance comes to move to the country, she jumps at it as a way of saving her sanity. Only it doesn't. 
 
Because the music has followed her. Except this time, it's choral music sung by a choir of children only she can see and hear ...

The Orphan Choir

DBC Pierre

'Hell is other people.' A chilling, page-turning Hammer novella by the Booker-Prize-winning author of Vernon God Little. 
 
The setting: a faded, lonely guesthouse on the Essex coast. Outside, it's dark, and very foggy. Inside there's no phone or internet reception, no connection with the outside world. 
 
Enter Ariel Panek, a promising young academic en route from the USA to an important convention in Amsterdam. With his plane grounded by fog at Stanstead, he has been booked in for the night at the guesthouse. Discombobulated and jetlagged, he falls in with a family who appear to be commemorating an event. 
 
But this is no ordinary celebration. And this is no ordinary family. 
 
As evening becomes night, Panek realises that he has become caught in an insidious web of other people's secrets and lies, a Sartrian hell from which for him there may be no escape.

Breakfast with the Borgias

Joanna Briscoe

A chilling, deeply creepy Hammer novella by Joanna Briscoe, author of the acclaimed, bestselling novel, Sleep With Me. 
 
Rowena Crale and her family have moved from London. 
 
They now live in a small English village in a cottage which seems to be resisting all attempts at renovation. 
 
Walls ooze damp, stains come through layers of wallpaper, celings sag. 
 
And strange noises - voices - emanate from empty rooms. 
 
As Rowena struggles with the upheaval of builders while trying to be a dutiful wife and a good mother to her young children, her life starts to disintegrate. 
 
And then, one by one, her daughters go missing ...

Touched

Shaun Hutson

In a quiet field in Buckinghamshire, a huge crack has appeared in the earth's surface. And people are dying. Incinerated beyond recognition. At the same time, hospitals have noticed an increase in catastrophic deformities in foetuses, and cancer levels soaring. 
 
Dr Adam Royston, a scientist working at the nearby military base, thinks he knows what it is; a creature as old as the earth that slumbers for centuries, then wakes to feed on the energy and radiation produced by humans. But if he's right, and they can't find a way to destroy the creature roaming the countryside, then it's not just Buckinghamshire that could be in danger, but the whole world.

X The Unknown

Francis Cottam

Every year, three million single women in America move into an apartment for the first time. Few of them change the locks. 
 
Juliet Devereau can't believe her luck: after weeks of looking for a place to live, she's found a beautiful, spacious apartment overlooking Brooklyn Bridge. It almost seems to good to be true. 
 
It is... Over the weeks, a chilling sense of being watched stalks Juliet. Strange sounds wake her in the night, the mirror in the bathroom trembles, and doors she thought shut are open. Then the silhouette of a man standing in her living room makes her realise that she's not alone in there. But what's haunting her is far more terrifying than a malevolent spirit; it's alive, strong and obsessed. Suddenly Juliet is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and there's no guarantee that she'll come out alive...

The Resident

KA John

The dead should never be woken 
 
Still grieving after the death of their young daughter Alice in a frenzied dog attack, Patrick and Louise Daley leave the city to try and find some peace in the Irish countryside, and the village of Wake Wood seems like the perfect place to start again. 
 
But the residents are guarding a terrifying secret: they can resurrect the dead. However, the rules are strict, they will bring Alice back only if she has been dead for less than a year; and, after three days, she must be buried. 
 
Desperate to see their daughter again, even for just three days, the Daleys agree to everything. But they have been lying from the start. And by the time the villagers realise, it's too late. Alice is alive and she does not want to go back...

Wake Wood

The final book in the enthralling Engelsfors trilogy 
 
It’s been over a month since the tragedy in Engelsfors High School. But the Chosen Ones have no time to recover before their world is turned upside down again. 
 
In this final instalment that started with The Circle and continued with Fire, questions will be answered; secrets revealed and loyalties tested to the limit. 
 
Time is running out for the Chosen Ones to fulfil the prophecy and save the world, but whether they succeed or not, one thing is certain: 
 
Everything is about to change…

The Key

Minette Walters

The terrifying Hammer novella by Minette Walters, bestselling author of The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle 
 
Muna's bedroom is a dark windowless cellar and her activities are confined to cooking and cleaning. She’s grown used to being maltreated by the Songoli family; to being a slave. 
 
She’s never been outside, doesn’t know how to read or write, and cannot speak English. 
 
At least that’s what the Songolis believe. 
 
But Muna is far cleverer - and her plans more terrifying - than the Songolis, or anyone else, can ever imagine ...

The Cellar

There is a fine line between obsession and madness and Frankenstein just stepped across it… 
 
Escaping the guillotine Victor Frankenstein is now posing as Doctor 
Stein, altruistic patron of the hospital for the poor. But in a secret basement laboratory he is harvesting body parts from his helpless patients, using them in his twisted experiments in a bid to create the perfect man. And this time he has help from a would-be pupil. His pupil seeks knowledge, but Frankenstein desires vengeance against all those who have tried to stop his terrifying work. 
 
The first time he tried, it ended in bloody mayhem, but now he is determined that nothing will go wrong. He wants revenge and God help anyone who gets in his way…

The Revenge of Frankenstein

Melvin Burgess

When Beth wakes up one morning covered in dirt, she puts it down to an extreme case of sleep-walking. But when reports of a desecrated grave start to circulate, her night-time wanderings take on a sinister air. 
 
Soon the city is being plagued by strange sightings and sudden disappearances. 
 
Beth knows that something is changing within her. Something that's filling her with an urgent, desperate hunger that demands to be satisfied – at any cost ...

Hunger

Julie Myerson

Rachel and Dan want to go somewhere hot in January. 
 
Recently married and expecting their first baby, they decide on an island in the Caribbean. Why not turn it into a honeymoon, Dan says? 
 
A holiday in paradise. It ought to be perfect. Except that, for Rachel, it's not. 
 
Things take a sinister turn as soon as they arrive. 
 
As furniture shifts and objects fly around, as a waitress begs her to leave and a fellow guest makes her increasingly uneasy, Rachel realises everything she holds most dear is at stake and nothing is quite as it seems...

The Quickening

You can do anything in Hollywood and be forgiven, anything except grow old... 
 
It’s the 1930s and cinema stands at the dawn of a new age, the silent era is all but dead, talkies are here and Technicolor is on its way. 
 
The whole world loves movie icons Frank Nayland and Elizabeth Sasdy, lapping up each new picture and following their romantic life story both on and off the screen. But all is not as perfect as it appears. 
 
Not only has the advent of talkies meant torturous sessions with a vocal coach to try and remove Sasdy’s Hungarian accent but she’s starting to spot the first few grey hairs, and the lines on her face get deeper every day. If she loses her looks she’ll lose everything, but even a woman as powerful as Elizabeth Sasdy can’t fight nature. Can she? 
 
A chance accident reveals the solution. But just how far is the Queen of Hollywood prepared to go to stay beautiful forever?

Countess Dracula

Tim Lebbon

‘Lebbon is quite simply the most exciting new name in horror for years.’ – SFX Magazine 
 
THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT HAS CHANGED FOREVER 
THE REASON IS COLDBROOK 
 
The facility lay deep in Appalachian Mountains, a secret laboratory called Coldbrook. Its scientists had achieved the impossible: a gateway to a new world. Theirs was to be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, but they had no idea what they were unleashing. 
 
With their breakthrough comes disease and now it is out and ravaging the human population. The only hope is a cure and the only cure and the only cure is genetic resistance: an uninfected person amongst the billions dead. 
 
In the chaos of destruction there is only one person that can save the human race. 
 
But will they find her in time?

Coldbrook

Karnstein Castle stands like a bird of prey on the highest point of the hills that surround the village below. A huge monolithic reminder to all those who see it of the power of the family who have lived there for centuries. 
 
By day the village of Karnstein is a peaceful place, but by night, an unimaginable evil roams free. Villagers are found dead, their throats ripped open and bodies drained of blood. Young girls disappear and are never seen again. Rumour has it that they are taken to the castle for the pleasure of Count Karnstein, the last surviving member of the family. 
 
Into this strange place, come beautiful identical twins Maria and Frieda. While Maria lives a blameless life, Frieda is drawn to the castle and Count Karnstein. A man rarely seen in daylight, a man steeped in Satanic ritual and the blood of beautiful young girls. 
 
Before long Frieda and Karnstein unleash a reign of bloody terror on the villagers, and no one, it seems, is strong enough to stop them.

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