Now a major BBC TV show, starring John Simm. Taut, menacing, sinister, gripping, intelligent, action-packed - everything you could want from a thriller. When ex-LAPD patrol cop Jack Whalen's wife goes missing on a routine business trip to Seattle, his world is shaken. Meanwhile, a ten-year-old girl vanishes from a beach in Oregon after an encounter with a sinister stranger - but it gradually becomes clear that she's very far from defenceless. Searching for answers in the shadowy secrets of a past that still haunts him, Jack discovers that the truth has roots deeper and darker than he ever feared.

A mesmerising SF thriller from a master of the genre. Hap Thompson is a REMtemp, working the night hours, having people's anxiety dreams for them. For the first time in his life, Hap's making big money - and that should have been enough... Hap Thompson has finally found something he can do better than anyone else. And it's legal. Almost. Hap's a REMtemp, working the night hours, having people's anxiety dreams for them. For the first time in his life, Hap's making big money - and that should have been enough. But then Hap is made an offer he just can't refuse: proxying memories instead of dreams. This is not almost illegal - this is illegal in bold with flashing lights. The last thing the cops want are criminals who can pass lie detector tests and Hap knows it, but he's relying on the promise that he won't have to carry anything that relates to a criminal offence. Big mistake. Before he knows what's happening, Hap is locked in a vicious nightmare that threatens to tear his mind and his life apart... And, as in all Michael Marshall Smith novels, that is just the start.

Welcome to a landscape of ancient evil . . . with stories by masters of horror Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft, M. R. James , Ramsey Campbell, Storm Constantine, Christopher Fowler, Alison Littlewood, Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver , Michael Marshall Smith, Karl Edward Wagner, and more! The darkness that endures beneath the earth . . . the disquiet that lingers in the woodland surrounding a forgotten path . . . those ancient traditions and practices that still cling to standing stone circles, earthworks, and abandoned buildings; elaborate rituals that invoke elder gods or nature deities; the restless spirits and legendary creatures that remain connected to a place or object, or exist in deep wells and lonely pools of water, waiting to ensnare the unwary traveler . . . These concepts have been the archetypes of horror fiction for decades, but in recent years they have been given a name: Folk Horror. This type of storytelling has existed for more than a century. Authors Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft, and M. R. James all published fiction that had it roots in the notion of the supernatural being linked to objects or places "left behind." All four writers are represented in this volume with powerful, and hopefully unfamiliar, examples of their work, along with newer exponents of the craft such as Ramsey Campbell, Storm Constantine, Christopher Fowler, Alison Littlewood, Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver, and many others. Illustrated with the atmospheric photography of Michael Marshall Smith, the stories in The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror tap into an aspect of folkloric tradition that has long been dormant, but never quite forgotten, while the depiction of these forces as being in some way "natural" in no way detracts from the sense of nameless dread and escalating horror that they inspire . . .

Tense and suspense-filled thriller from the author of The Straw Men and The Lonely Dead. Notorious serial killer the Upright Man has escaped from a supermax prison. The FBI have no idea how it happened, or where to start looking. Ex-CIA agent Ward Hopkins suspects the Straw Men, a shadowy conspiracy of killers with a macabre agenda. But apart from Ward's girlfriend Nina, a discredited federal agent, the only person who believes the Straw Men even exist is John Zandt, a homicide detective obsessed with tracking down his daughter's killers- and who is now wanted for murder himself. The terrifying thing is that Ward's right- his brother was broken out for a reason. The Straw Men are planning something big. And now only Ward, Nina and Zandt stand between them and a spectacular act of carnage...

An electrifying thriller from the author of the international bestsellerThe Straw Men. A guilty man walks alone into the cold mountain forests of Washington State, aiming never to return. What he finds there starts a chain of events that will quickly spiral out of control. Meanwhile in Los Angeles a woman's body is discovered, sitting bolt upright in a motel bedroom. She is dead, and her killer has left his mark. It soon becomes clear he has something to say, and a lot more work to do. And Ward Hopkins, an ex-CIA agent recovering from the recent shocking death of his parents, is on the trail of his past, tracking down the men who destroyed everything he once held dear, and the murderer whose face he sees every time he looks in the mirror. These three are ominous strands in a web of deadly secrets, roads to a dark history that should never have been told. There are people who will do anything to protect it. Anything at all. It's not a matter of who dies. We're all going to die. What matters is who dies last. Michael Marshall's unique voice adds a chilling intensity to the serial-killer plot, combining dazzling narrative, a white-hot pace and a deeply disturbing backdrop of conspiracy.

The 2024 Bloomsbury Lent Book invites you on a six-week journey in the company of the ‘beloved disciple’ as found in the narrative of the Gospel of St John. As the only disciple to have stayed close to Jesus at every stage from the Last Supper to the Crucifixion at Calvary, this eagle-eyed eyewitness intentionally records certain subtle details and signs which, when perceived with the eyes of faith, indicate a deeper and far lasting significance. Michael Marshall explores what these signs are and how, with prayerful reflection, they draw us ever more deeply into the personal, eternal and cosmic significance and awareness of all that Christ accomplished by his death and resurrection – the Paschal Mystery. Ideal for both individual use and for small group study, Lent with the Beloved Disciple takes us into the heart of that Paschal Mystery, by which all things in heaven and earth are ultimately fulfilled in the risen and ascended Christ, who is ‘all in all’.

The first ever collection of Michael Marshall Smith's award-winning short stories. The first piece of fiction Smith ever wrote -- a short story called The Man Who Drew Cats -- won the World Fantasy award. It's included here along with many others, some unpublished, which show the incredible versatility of one of the most exciting writers working in Britain today. The collection is stuffed with surreal, disturbing gems including: 'When God Lived in Kentish Town' Someone comes up to you when you're quietly eating your stir-fried rice in a great Chinese take away, and tells you: 'I've found God'. You try to ignore them, right? But what if they have, and what if He works in a drab old electrical store on Kentish Town Road and he's not getting many customers? 'Diet Hell' Some people will do anything to fit into their old jeans. 'Save As...' What if you could back up your life? Save it up to a certain point and return to it when things went horribly wrong? 'Everybody Goes' An idyllic childhood day from a long, hot summer. The kind you want to last for ever. All good things must come to an end, mustn't they?

Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. May we introduce you to Stark. Oh, and by the way - good luck. Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'go away go away go away' and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won't be beaten until you face it. And that's not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat - and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality. And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep... Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.

Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Stark lives in Colour, a neighbourhood whose inhabitants like to be co-ordinated with their surroundings - a neighbourhood where spangly purple trousers are admired by the walls of buildings as you pass them. Close by is Sound, where you mustn't make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw. Then there's Red - get off at Fuck Station Zero if you want to see a tactical nuclear battle recreated as a sales demonstration. Stark has friends in Red, which is just as well because Something is about to happen. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'Duck and cover' while cowering in a corner, because a Something is always from the past, Stark's past, and it won't go away until you face it full on.

Here, for the first time, is complete collection of actor and entertainer Stanley Holloway's incomparable comic monologues, which he performed between 1929 and 1941. All the much-loved characters such as Albert Ramsbottom ('with a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle'), Sam Small ('Sam, Sam, pick oop tha' arm), and King 'Arold ('on his 'orse with his 'awk in his 'and') are gathered together and brilliantly illustrated by cartoonist Bill Tidy.

Only a handful of authors write with such startling originality that the uniqueness of their vision has become synonymous with their name. In Spares and One of Us, Michael Marshall Smith has earned that distinction. In this unsettling, suspenseful, and wildly imaginative novel he's written a tale that from page one hurtles us....

Only Forward

Call him Stark.  If you have to.  If you're lucky, you won't call him at all. Because if you do, it means you've got trouble. Big trouble.  And the problem is that before Stark is done fixing something, a whole lot of other things usually get broken.  Like laws and lives--and anyone who gets in the way.   It's that attitude that's earned him his latest assignment: finding a missing VIP named Fell Alkland.  The authorities believe Alkland has been kidnapped.  Stark doesn't. He hasn't stayed alive this long without learning the basics of survival in a world hurtling straight to hell: Things are always more complicated than they seem.  And when a job seems too easy, that's when something really ugly is about to happen. For Fell Alkland is about to become Stark's worst nightmare, a nightmare where anything can happen at any time--where friends can become enemies in a heartbeat and your most secret fear a soul-screaming reality. And the worst of it is that for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep.

'Spares' – human clones, the ultimate health insurance. An eye for an eye – but some people are doing all the taking.

'Spares' – the story of Jack Randall: burnt – out, dropped out, and way overdrawn at the luck bank. But as caretaker on a Spares farm, he still has a choice, and it might make a difference…if he can run fast enough.

'Spares' – a breathless race through strange, disturbing territories in a world all too close on our own.

'Spares' it’s fiction. But only just…

“ Comic, cruel, twisted and surreal.”
EMPIRE

“Some books stretch the imagination.This one mugs it.”
DAVID BADDIEL

“Tense, exciting and at times very, very funny…He’s worth every penny.”
TIME OUT

“Witty, hard – edged and coruscatingly imaginative…Compellingly off – kilter.”
NEW SCIENTIST

“'Spares' blurs imaginative surrealism and hard – bitten horror with a storytelling skill that can only be described as pure genius.”
'VENUE'

“A compulsively readable melding of hardboiled narrative and hardware invention.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

'A fascinating and challenging story' New York Review of Books 'This is an incredibly absorbing and insightful book about the most important scientific question of our age' Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters 'The story of the quest to understand life's genesis is a universal one, in which everyone can find pleasure and fascination. By asking how life came to be, we are implicitly asking why we are here, whether life exists on other planets, and what it means to be alive. This book is the story of a group of fragile, flawed humans who chose to wrestle with these questions. By exploring the origin of life, we can catch a glimpse of the infinite.' How did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask. For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals, and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervour, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion. But the quest to unravel life's genesis is not just a story of big ideas. It is also a compelling human story, rich in personalities, conflicts, and surprising twists and turns. Along the way the journey takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from evolution and cells to DNA and life's family tree. It is also a search whose end may finally be in sight. In The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall shows how the quest to understand life's beginning is also a journey to discover the true nature of life, and by extension our place in the universe.

It should've been the greatest day in David's life. A trip to New York, wife by his side, to visit his new publisher. Finally it looks as though the gods of fate are going to lift him from schoolteacher to writer. But on his way back to Penn Station, a chance encounter changes all of that.

David bumps into a stranger who covertly follows him, and then, just before they board the train home, passes him by close enough to whisper: "Remember me."

The stranger follows them back to where they live, and it isn't long before David realizes that this man wants something from him... something very personal, that he may have no choice but to surrender.

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Intruders" and "The Straw Men" comes a nerve-shattering story of guilt, secrets, and very, very . . . bad things

On a beautiful summer afternoon, John Henderson watched his four-year-old son, Scott, tumble from a jetty into the lake outside their Black Ridge, Washington, home. In an instant, Scott Henderson had simply, inexplicably . . . "died."

Three years later, John is a different man--divorced, living a solitary existence in a beach house in Oregon. Then one night he receives a disturbing e-mail message from a stranger. It reads: "I know what happened."

It's enough to pull him back to Black Ridge--the one place on earth he'd hoped never to return to, unwittingly unleashing a terrifying sequence of events that threatens to destroy what remains of everything he once held dear.

A relentlessly thrilling novel of psychological suspense, Michael Marshall's "Bad Things" is a masterwork of chill-inducing brilliance that will keep the reader guessing right through to the final page.