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Behind every door waits a living nightmare . . .

Spencer Gill is a man with problems. The fact that he’s dying, slowly, is only one of them. The castle, up on the slopes of a famous Scottish mountain, is another. For one thing, it doesn’t have any doors – at least, not on the outside. And it’s Gill’s nightmare task to find out what it really is.

In fact, this horror-house has many doors. But they’re all on the inside. And sheer bloody terror lives and lurks behind every one of them.

The welcome mat is out for Gill. And for you. So come on in. Just don’t slam the door . . .

No. 11 India Crescent is officially a dead address. Its absentee owner, General Tygarth, and his wife are reported to be living abroad, but it is so long since they have been seen in the town that few remember them.

Only one or two people recall its tragic story of domestic tyranny, ill-starred love and early death; only Mr Spree the lawyer knows that the old General has ordered the house to be closed for a certain number of years. Now, in a fortnight’s time, the house is to be reopened.

But to Elizabeth Fetherstonehaugh, the young governess at No. 10, the night noises coming from the house next door are fast becoming an obsession …

A young woman has a new position – but will she listen to the voice warning her not to cross the threshold of that sinister house…
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club


Nora Deane, a young nurse, has been instructed to report to 12 Askew Avenue, Charlbury, to look after a new patient. As she steps from the station into an impenetrable blanket of fog, she is glad to accept the escort of a mysterious young man to the address.

Once alone in the darkness, she presses the bell and waits. She shivers. She wants to be inside, out of the dangers of the dark. Yet some inner voice persistently warns her not to cross the threshold of that sinister house . . .

When Spencer Gill, Jack Turnbull and Angela Denholm were taken by the Castle in Scotland – when they played Sith of the Throne’s monstrous multidimensional game to stay the execution of Earth, and won – they made a deadly, devious enemy of the alien master of The House of Doors.

Now Sith is back, and his game is more deadly yet. In worlds that are known, and others beyond imagining . . . in mad machine worlds, and some that can only be the product of a diseased mind – indeed, in one such that is a diseased mind – Sith’s new game will be played out to the bitter end. For the game is rigged, The House of Doors inscrutable as ever, and its doors all designed to lead Gill and his companions ever deeper into worlds of uttermost terror . . .

Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses …

The house in Chelsea was smart, in an unpretentious way. But when detective John Bryant rang the front door bell, he found neither intellect nor artistry; what lay before him was a world of curious contrasts – of extravagance and squalor, luxury and murder.

Bryant follows his lads from a second-rate strip club, via a vast modern steelworks to the Seamen’s Quarter in Amsterdam. Piece by piece the truth is uncovered and the mystery reaches a crescendo in a climax of violence against the brilliant colours of a sun-filled patio.

In the shadowy hallway of clockmaker Johannes Carver’s house a policeman is found murdered, the arrow-tipped minute hand of an antique clock embedded in his neck.

For Dr Gideon Fell this is the only case that has ever really frightened him, and before he can solve it he must find answers to some seemingly impossible questions: why was Calvin Boscombe standing near the corpse with a silencer on his gun? Who locked the attic door? And what has become of the sixteenth-century death-watch?

The perfect Halloween novel!

‘Glaister has the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on things we most fear, of exposing the darkness within’ Independent on Sunday

‘Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister’ Harper’s Bazaar

All Nell’s life, Olive Owen has lived next door but one. And all her life, Nell has hated her. Even at school Olive had sparkled indecently, turning heads. Nell has a son, her pleasure and her shame, though now she lives alone. Nell is sharp in all the places Olive is round.

When Wolfe moves into the house in between them, their quiet street is transformed. A lonely, spirited eight-year-old boy, he knocks on their doors at Halloween and invites them to his bonfire party. As the fireworks flare, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient conflict, grudges bared and burning with a fury he could never have imagined.

‘A perfect, black little tale’ Observer

Clifford Flush founded the Asterisk Club in Chelsea to provide a home for wrongfully acquitted murderers, being one himself. Qualified prospective members need only name the club as beneficiary in their wills in order to avail themselves of its comforts and unique services.

Unfortunately, there isn’t room for Benjamin Cann, a gentleman’s outfitter newly acquitted of murdering his mistress. So Flush arranges for Benjamin to be temporarily quartered next door in a rat-infested house inhabited by two artistic couples. When Benjamin and a female member of the Asterisk Club turn up dead, the two households both have reason to avoid the police and dispose of the bodies …

‘Ingenious and successful farce’ Sunday Times

When Robert Wolff found a strange horn in an empty house he held the key to a different universe. To blow that horn would open up a door through space-time and permit entry to a cosmos whose dimensions and laws were not those known by our starry galaxy.

For that other universe was a place of tiers, world upon world piled upon each other like the landings of a sky-piercing mountain. The one to blow that horn would ascend those steps, from creation to creation, until he would come face to face with the being whose brain-child it was. But what if that maker of universes was a madman? Or an imposter? Or a super-criminal hiding from the wrath of his own superiors…?

They took her identity – they wanted her life – but they couldn’t take her spirit.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

When Julia Ross, a jobless and penniless young woman, is sent to meet a prospective employer, she is oblivious to the trap that awaits her. As she rings the bell to 30 Henriques Square, the door opens on a London household ruled by a woman dressed in red with murderous intentions. For Julia is exactly what she needs – someone with no family, no connections, who will not be missed…

Two days later, Julia awakes in a different house in different clothes and with a new identity. And no one will believe anything she says.

But the woman in red hadn’t reckoned on a secret admirer even Julia didn’t know she had – and the indefatigable sleuth Arthur Crook.

Griselda and Con Satterlee are spending a second honeymoon in a cottage on Long Beach, and it’s not going well. To cap it all, Con picks up a blonde in the Bamboo Bar one night and walks out with her, leaving Griselda on her own.

Con comes back, saying that he took the blonde outside to try to stop her from shooting herself, but the police find her body the next morning and Con is arrested for her murder.

Then Con disappears, and Griselda is alone in their beach house with a door that can’t keep out the Major, who frightens her; Kew, whom Con distrusts; Kathie, who is lovely, and so strange; or Dare, who has caused trouble before . . .

Griselda must work quickly to save Con – and their marriage.

“If you run round the church seven times in an anti-clockwise direction, you’ll wake the Seven Sleepers. Then, if you look through the keyhole of the church door, you’ll see the Devil walking up the aisle towards you…”

When David Wisher’s mother inherits a house in the peaceful Yorkshire village of Longbarrow, David feels he is coming home. For he’s seen the house in his dreams. And when he eventually arrives in Longbarrow, he finds a place touched by the stories and beliefs of the past. There’s old Jonas Dyer, whose mystical visions have driven him to the verge of madness; Mr Toot, who uses magic to cure all ills; the little men, too small to be human, who are said to come out of the river; and Black Shuck, a ghostly dog with glowing eyes, whose appearance heralds approaching death. Most extraordinary of all, there’s the legend of the Seven Sleepers, defeated in an ancient battle and trapped throughout the centuries, their evil powers dormant.

Redcap, Uther, Vinegar Tom, Gerennius, Shuck, Pyewackett and Cullen. Together they spread terror, pestilence and destruction. And now, because of David’s unwitting actions, they are stirring once more…

A crime writer’s family witnesses a real-life murder – the neighbourhood just got dangerous…
Perfect for fans of KNIVES OUT

‘There was never anyone else like Craig Rice’ NEW YORK TIMES

Growing up with a crime writer for a mother leaves the Carstairs family with a talent for detection. So when they witnesses a neighbourhood murder, they launch their own investigation. And why not? They know everything about baffling mysteries from reading their mother’s books, the publicity could do wonders for her sales, and then she and a handsome detective could fall in love. It’s too perfect for words.

Marion’s too busy wrapping up the loose ends of her latest book for the inconvenience of a real crime. But what’s surfacing in the shadows of the house next door is not quite as predictable as fiction: accusations of racketeering, kidnapping and blackmail – and much more…

Patricia A. McKillip is the author of a number of hugely acclaimed fantasies, including The Riddle-Master of Hed and its sequels, which have been compared to Gene Wolfe’s epic Book of the New Sun, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Ombria in Shadow, both of which won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. She has won the Mythopoeic Award three times and in 2008 was given the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement. This omnibus collects three of her later works: In the Forests of Serre, Alphabet of Thorn and The Bell at Sealey Head.

IN THE FORESTS OF SERRE: In the tales of World Fantasy Award-winning author Patricia McKillip, nothing is ever as it seems. A mirror is never just a mirror; a forest is never just a forest. Here, it is a place where a witch can hide in her house of bones and a prince can bargain with his heart…where good and evil entwine and wear each others’ faces…and where a bird with feathers of fire can quench the fiercest longing…

ALPHABET OF THORN: One of the most spectacular fantasists of our time, Patricia A. McKillip creates fairy tale worlds of wonder and magic. Now, she opens the page on a time and place where an orphan girl is haunted by thorns…a reluctant queen rules between sea and sky… and epics never end…

THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD: Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses.

Usually, Crosstime Traffic concerns itself with trade. Our world owns the secret of travel between parallel continuums, and we use it to trade for much-needed resources with the worlds next door; preferably without letting them know about any of that parallel-worlds stuff. But in one parallel world, Crosstime Traffic is present, not to trade, but to study what went wrong.

In a Los Angeles where nuclear war broke out back in 1967, survival is a matter of neighbourhood versus neighbourhood. When the Westsiders block Sepulveda Pass, the inhabitants of the San Fernando Valley are forced to fight back. With the help of some prewar machine guns, the Valley prevails, and their forces occupy the Westside.

In this brutal world, Liz and her family are undercover Crosstime Traffic agents living near the ruins of UCLA. Dan is a soldier in the occupying Valley army. Dan thinks Liz is the most impressive woman he’s ever met. Liz thinks she’d better avoid Dan if she wants to protect the mission.

To complicate matters, when Dan catches Liz in the UCLA library, he fears she may be a spy for the Westsiders. After all, what reason could anyone have for reading about the Old Times, if not to figure out how to reconstruct old weapons systems?

Then a real spy for the Westside government-in-exile shows up at Liz’s house…