Moving into an old and decaying house, Martin Swann discovers a box of video cassettes in the garden shed. One of them is a bootleg copy of a morbid and disturbing film by obscure French director, Jean Rien. The discovery leads Martin on a search for the director's other films, and for a way to understand Rien's filmography, drawing him away from his home and his lover into a shadowy realm of secrets, rituals and creeping decay. An encounter with a crazed film journalist in Gravesend leads to drug-fuelled visions in Paris - and finally to the Mexican desert where a grim revelation awaits. The Witnesses Are Gone is a first-hand account of a journey into the darkest parts of the underworld - a look behind the screen on which our collective nightmares play.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NINA ALLAN Joel Lane (1963-2013) was one of the UK's foremost writers of dark, unsettling fiction, a frank explorer of sexuality and the transgressive aspects of human nature. With a tight focus on the post-industrial Black Country and his home city of Birmingham, he created a distinct form of British urban weird fiction. His debut collection, The Earth Wire was first published in 1994 by Egerton Press and is reissued in paperback by Influx Press for the first time in over twenty-five years. Love and death. Sex and despair. The Earth Wire is a thrilling, disturbing examination of the means and the cost of survival.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JOSEPH O’NEILL Neil is a student at Birmingham University, living a typical life of gigs, clubs, politics, sex. One night, after a row with his lover, Neil follows a stranger onto a canal towpath. The stranger turns on him and attacks, viciously carving up Neil’s face and leaving him mutilated beyond recognition. Neil’s recovery is a journey through surgical reconstruction and sexual alienation. His attempt to track down his attacker becoming a search for his own hidden, destructive self; a search that leads him to question values he had always taken for granted. First published in 2003 and long out-of-print, The Blue Mask is a hardcore emotional trip exploring the trauma of change and the nature of violence and of love.

Birmingham, early 1990s. Triangle are a cult act on the post-punk scene, led by brilliant and troubled vocalist Karl - a man haunted by past violence and present danger, torn between fame and oblivion, men and women, music and silence. Triangle's bass player, David, is struggling to make sense of Karl's reality as the band start to make waves in the music scene and Karl starts to come apart in a blur of sex and drinking. First published in 2000, Joel Lane's debut novel From Blue to Black is a story of passion, blood and alcohol, broken strings and broken lives - a piercing voyage through our musical and political past that cuts to the bone.

Joel Lane (1963-2013) was one of the UK's foremost writers of dark, unsettling fiction, a frank explorer of sexuality and the transgressive aspects of human nature. With a tight focus on the post-industrial Black Country and his home city of Birmingham, he created a distinct form of British urban weird fiction. Scar City is one of the final collections put together before his death in 2013 - with his home city of Birmingham as their nucleus, these are intense, haunting and often painful stories from a master of the short form. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NICHOLAS ROYLE

WINNER OF THE 2013 WORLD FANTASY AWARD Episodes from the casebook of a police officer in the West Midlands: A young woman needs help in finding the buried pieces of her lover... so he can return to waking life. Pale-faced thieves gather by a disused railway to watch a puppet theatre of love and violence. Why do local youths keep starting fires in the ash woods around a disused mine in the Black Country? A series of inexplicable deaths uncover a secret cult of machine worship. When a migrant worker disappears, the key suspect is a boy driven mad by memories that are not his own. Among the derelict factories and warehouses at the heart of the city, an archaic god seeks out his willing victims. Blurring the occult detective story with urban noir fiction, Where Furnaces Burn offers a glimpse of the myths and terrors buried within the industrial landscape. First published in 2012, Joel Lane’s World Fantasy Award-winning collection is a true modern classic of weird fiction that cemented his place as one of the most important and distinctive British writers of the weird.

Few cities have undergone such a radical transformation over the last few decades as Birmingham. Culturally and architecturally, it has been in a state of perpetual flux and regeneration, with new communities moving in, then out, and iconic post-war landmarks making way for brighter-coloured, 21st century flourishes. Much like the city itself, the characters in the stories gathered here are often living through moments of profound change, closing in on a personal or societal turning point, that carries as much threat as it does promise. Set against key moments of history – from Malcolm X’s visit to Smethwick in 1965, to the Handsworth riots two decades later, from the demise of the city’s manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, to the on-going tensions between communities in recent years – these stories celebrate the cultural dynamism that makes this complex, often divided ‘second city’ far more than just the sum of its parts.

'The Autumn Myth' attempts a reality check on the myths and dreams that permeate our world. It attacks the culture of political and corporate mendacity in modern Britain, then goes on to consider the more ambiguous myths that sustain our personal lives. The poems explore the human experience of time, the lessons of grief and the evocative power of music. They look beyond a bitter society governed by lies towards a more creative use of imagination. The title poem suggests that global warming has eradicated autumn - and Lane's third collection celebrates an October of the heart, a revolutionary glow.

Welcome To The New Home Of Horror 'Johnny Mains is the go-to man for horror in the UK. His extensive knowledge of and unbound passion for the genre is amazing. If there was a government Ministry of Horror (which there should be), Johnny would be in charge. He is the Minister for Horror. He has extraordinary energy and is fighting a one-man battle to preserve and revitalise the noble tradition of the horror anthology. Oh, and he is a nice bloke as well.' -Charlie Higson 'Mercy stands before her, wielding a mud-caked pickaxe in both hands ...' -When Charlie Sleeps, Laura Mauro 'Too much Semtex was an obvious, beginner's mistake, and I noted I needed to remove more brain in future ...' -Exploding Raphaelesque Heads, Ian Hunter 'There isn't much time. Blood is already spattering the paper on which I am writing ...' -The Secondary Host, John Probert 'It appeared to be an insect of some kind, perhaps a beetle or a spider with a bloated body ...' -Come Into My Parlour, Reggie Oliver Best British Horror is a new anthology series dedicated to showcasing and proving, without doubt, that when it comes to horror and supernatural fiction, Britain is its obvious and natural home. This new anthology includes stories by: Ramsey Campbell, Kate Farrell, Gary Fry, Muriel Gray, Ian Hunter, Joel Lane, Tanith Lee, V.H. Leslie, John Llewellyn Probert, Michael Marshall Smith, Laura Mauro, Mark Morris, Adam Nevill, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, Marie O'Regan, Robert Shearman, Elizabeth Stott, Anna Taborska, Stephen Volk and D.P. Watt.

The latest volume of The Black Book of Horror contains 17 macabre chillers. The Third Black Book of Horror, where you'll encounter a hound from hell, practitioners of dark arts, vengeful women, and the restless dead. Tales of ghoulish delight and blinding terror.

The second in a brand-new series of annual anthologies, "The Best British Short Stories 2012" reprints the cream of short fiction, by British writers, first published in 2011. These stories first appeared in magazines from "Ambit" to "Granta," in anthologies across various genres from publishers big and small, and in authors' own short story collections. They were broadcast on radio and delivered by mobile phone app. They appeared online at "Metazen" and "Paraxis."