MADDER MYSTERIES by Reggie Oliver (limited edition hardcover)

SOLD OUT AT PUBLISHER!

This is Reggie Oliver’s fourth work in the field of “strange stories”. In his first three The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (Haunted River 2003), The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (Haunted River 2005) and Masques of Satan (Ash Tree Press 2007) he explored the uncanny interactions between the physical and metaphysical worlds with a blend of deep seriousness, sharp wit and sardonic humour unique to this writer’s work. As a result they have been among the most acclaimed collections of supernatural stories of the 21st century, garnering numerous awards and nominations.

In Madder Mysteries, Oliver travels even deeper into his own bizarre territory, hence the title. A troupe of performing midgets plague and haunt a theatrical landlady; a head mysteriously appears on the seat beside the driver of a car and starts to plague him with weird inconsequential remarks; a hideous scandal is foreseen by a young Victorian clergyman who goes insane trying to prevent it. This Trollopian tale of Cathedral life, told in journals and letters, is based on events in the life of the author’s own Great Grandfather. A mad actor tells of supernatural revenge involving a mysterious wig; a young student on a Greek Island encounters the bizarre and horrific survival of an Ancient “Mystery Religion”; while “Tawny” is a tour de force, told entirely in dialogue. It takes place at a Christening party where a horrific act takes place, unnoticed by those present until it is too late.

Recently Reggie Oliver was granted permission by Nicholas Rhodes James, great nephew of the great M. R. James, to publish a completion of M. R. James’s tantalising fragment of a ghost story “The Game of Bear” and this will be among the many tales that appear for the first time in print here.

In a section entitled “Diversions and Curiosities”, Oliver’s surreal humour finds new and highly original expression. In a parody of academic journalism, Oliver explores the life of an imaginary French Decadent writer obsessed by hats and prostitutes. Then, in his series “The Cabinet of Curiosities”, he takes as his starting point the graphic and literary style of a nineteenth century magazine, and with hilarious solemnity explores tales of a portrait that sleeps, a woman who grows a beard after her husband’s death, a disappearing school, a clergyman who communicates with demons and, perhaps most unsettling of all, the sinister saga of “Mrs Midnight’s Animal Comedians.” Are there “Madder Mysteries” than these?

The book also features four essays by Reggie Oliver which are versions of articles which first appeared in the magazine All Hallows. In “Stella Gibbons, A Writer and Supernatural”, Oliver, Stella Gibbons’s nephew and biographer (Out of the Woodshed, Bloomsbury 1998), deals with a significant but little known aspect of this writer who gave the world the classic comic novel Cold Comfort Farm. “The Ghost STories of Another Antiquary, Montague Summers and the Supernatural Tale”, deals with the life and work of one of the world’s strangest and most enigmatic literary scholars. It examines his theories about the supernatural in literature and his rare attempts at writing supernatural stories himself. “M. R. James, The Scholar and the Storyteller” is a study of the writer of classic ghost stories. Reggie Oliver, whose background and education was remarkably similar to James’s (they were both Newcastle Scholars at Eton), has some unique insights into the man and the writer. It is in this essay that he identifies for the first time the real life model for Karswell in “Casting the Runes”. It is a theory which, since the first publication of the essay has won wide acceptance. “Religions, Evil and Obsession in the Ghost Stories of Henry James”, is perhaps the first major study concentrating exclusively on the “other” James’s supernatural writing since Virginia Woolf’s famous essay in the 1920s.

The book is illustrated throughout with Oliver’s fine, but very bizarre illustrations, making it a connoisseur’s collector’s item as well as a splendidly provoking read. Truly a thing of strangeness and a joy forever.

THE HILLIKER CURSE by James Ellroy (signed limited hardcover)

The legendary crime writer gives us a raw, brutally candid memoir—as high intensity and as riveting as any of his novels—about his obsessive search for “atonement in women.”

The year was 1958. Jean Hilliker had divorced her fast-buck hustler husband and resurrected her maiden name. Her son, James, was ten years old. He hated and lusted after his mother and “summoned her dead.” She was murdered three months later.

The Hilliker Curse is a predator’s confession, a treatise on guilt and on the power of malediction, and above all, a cri de cœur. James Ellroy unsparingly describes his shattered childhood, his delinquent teens, his writing life, his love affairs and marriages, his nervous breakdown, and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who may just be the long-sought Her.

A layered narrative of time and place, emotion and insight, sexuality and spiritual quest, The Hilliker Curse is a brilliant, soul-baring revelation of self. It is unlike any memoir you have ever read.

THE LUCID DREAMING BY LISA MORTON (Lettered signed hardcover edition)

BRAM STOKER AWARD WINNER!

We are PROUD to announce the LETTERED EDITION of Lisa Morton’s BRAM STOKER AWARD WINNING novella, “The Lucid Dreaming”. The books are hand crafted by the amazing CHRIS HEDGES with “psychedelic” cover and endpapers. You DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON THIS TITLE! Those of you who own, or have seen our lettereds of “The Scrubs” and “Miranda” crafted by Hedges, know what I am talking about….

Ashley, a twentysomething California girl, is a postpunk who would rather be called Spike and who worries about money, her family, and freeway traffic. She’s also a violent paranoid schizophrenic living in a state facility west of Los Angeles, her disorder kept under control by confinement and the drug Prolixin.

One day Spike is shocked to find her cell door open and so she ventures out, only to find the walls smeared with blood and the staff missing or dead. She escapes and ventures into a world that’s been driven mad by waking nightmares, where she’s now the sanest person alive. Searching for answers, Spike embarks on a road trip that will lead her from Beverly Hills to a nightmarish Texas compound to the highest office in the land…

“A cold, calculating nightmare. Sharp as a finely honed blade. ‘The Lucid Dreaming’ cuts, separating the flesh before you even know you’ve been injured. It makes you bleed as a reader.” —Del Howison, Bram Stoker Award-winning editor for Dark Delicacies

THE DEVIL by Ken Bruen (limited edition hardcover)

Mysterious Bookshop, US, 2010. Hard Cover. Book Condition: Very Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Fine.This edition limited to 100 copies. Leather spine. Marbled boards. acetate jacket. As new. Limited/Numbered First Edition, First Printing. Signed on presentation page. Leather spine.

America – the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who’s just been refused entry. Disappointed and bitter, he thinks that an encounter with an over-friendly stranger in an airport bar is the least of his problems. Except that this stranger seems to know rather more than he should about Jack. Jack thinks no more of their meeting and resumes his old life in Galway. But when he’s called to investigate a student murder – connected to an elusive Mr K – he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really is who he says he is? With the help of the Jameson, Jack struggles to make sense of it all. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis. But why has he been chosen? And could he really have taken on the devil himself?

Now for the GOOD NEWS. Liz talked me into having a sale on IN STOCK ITEMS! Save 20% on any IN STOCK item if ordered between now Wednesday. (NOTE- I will have the coupon end on Wed. 8-25, so orders placed after NOON on that day will get the discount, but not ship until Tuesday). COUPON CODE is KILLER

So, get to buyin’!!!!

WOLFHUNT by Jeff Strand

Meet George and Lou, thugs for hire. The kind of intimidating-yet-friendly guys who will break your thumbs, but be nice about it.  Their latest assignment is to drive across Florida to deliver some precious cargo to a crime lord. The cargo: a man in a cage. Though Ivan seems perfectly human, they’re warned that he is, in fact, a bloodthirsty werewolf.

George and Lou don’t believe in the supernatural, but even if they did, it’s daytime and tonight isn’t the full moon. It’s just a simple transport job, albeit one that carries severe consequences if they screw it up. Their instructions are straightforward: Do not open the cage. Do not reach into the cage. Do not throw anything into the cage.And they don’t. Unfortunately, Ivan doesn’t play by the usual werewolf rules, and the thugs find themselves suddenly responsible for a vicious escaped beast. One who can transform at will. One who enjoys killing in human form as much as he enjoys killing as a monster. If George and Lou want to save their careers, dozens of people, and their own lives, they need to recapture him.

Because Ivan the werewolf is in the mood for a murder spree…

Deluxe A-Z Lettered: 6”x9”, bound in leather, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author’s name, includes artsy end papers, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, colored book ribbon with nice full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a beautiful slipcase and dust jacket.   BONUS: every order of the Deluxe edition of Wolfhunt comes with a FREE hand painted signed and numbered Wolfhunt sculpture by Frank Walls!  View pictures of the sculpture above.

100 Signed and Limited Hardcovers: 6”x9”, bound in leatherette, stamped on the spine with the title and author’s name, includes 80lb. natural vellum end papers, signed by the author, colored book ribbon, multi-colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, and has a beautiful dust jacket.

THE CHOSEN by Edward Lee (Collector hardcover edition)

This will be the World First Hardback Edition and First British Edition of this title, originally published in the USA as a paperback original by Pinnacle books.

For the first time Edward Lee‘s classic novel of erotic horror will be available to collector’s and fans in a quality, signed hardback edition.

Printed on matte coated Vancouver 90gsm paper. Sewn block, bound in red Colorado cloth with headbands, colored endpapers and bound in ribbon bookmark with DJ.

“Edward Lee …. blends nail-biting terror, suspense and eroticism like a dark magician and the results are always staggering!” – Cemetery Dance Magazine

Synopsis: Restaurant manager Vera Abott seems to have been given the job of her dreams. With a huge salary, company car and accommodation thrown in she moves to The Inn – a new restaurant / hotel being developed at the secluded Wroxton Hall by the mysterious Mr. Feldspar. But from the day she arrives she realises something is seriously wrong. She hears strange noises and sees shadowy figures prowling the corridors late at night and in her dreams is seduced by a hideous stranger who uses her body to satisfy his depraved lusts. The Inn hides a terrible secret and Vera is about to be initiated into a secret world of diabolical sex and horror.

WARNING – the content and illustrations mean this one is Strictly Adults Only!!

CHARNEL WINE: MEMENTO MORI by Richard Gavin (trade softcover)

Richard Gavin’s debut collection was one of Horror’s sleeper hits of 2004. The rapid sell-out of its entire print run resulted in Charnel Wine becoming a highly sought-after title among connoisseurs of weird fiction.

Charnel Wine: Memento Mori Edition, which contains the original collection in its entirety as well as four previously unpublished tales, a new Introduction by the author, and cover art by renowned illustrator J.K. Potter.

OUROBOROS by Michael Kelly & Carol Weekes (trade softcover)

OUROBOROS – life out of death.

Tom Christiansen’s wife of 35-years, Dolly, is dead. His world suddenly shattered, Tom takes refuge in his house to grieve and reflect. Tom’s thin veil of reality and fantasy begins to crack and slip. He hears things: the rusty creak of the backyard swing; the tap to tiny feet from an upstairs room. And he sees things, as well: a small rubber ball bouncing slowly down the stairs; birds like silent sentinels on electrical wires; a strange little pigtailed girl suddenly appearing in his yard, and what is that mysterious figure lying in the upstairs bed that he used to share with his beloved wife?

OUROBOROS – a new cycle has begun.

Tom’s long-time neighbors, and dearest friends, Mick and Robbi Hamlin begin to notice strange behavior from grief-stricken Tom. The witness dinner place-settings for two. They hear hushed conversations from the old house, as if Tom is speaking to himself, as if he is not alone. There is a pale little girl in the backyard, swinging ceaselessly. And something is rustling in the bushes, peering out from the undergrowth with inquisitive eyes.

OUROBOROS – the end is just the beginning.

PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub (signed limited hardcover)

SOLD OUT IN ONE DAY FROM CD!

“Sometimes people just disappeared. They’d be gone. All kinds of stuff used to happen, stuff you wouldn’t even believe in now.”

The jazz legend known as Pork Pie Hat has never told anyone about the horrible event he witnessed as a child in the forbidden woods known as The Backs, even though the events of that Halloween night have haunted him ever since. But Hat is sick now, nearing the end of a long slide through the depths of alcoholism and depression, and the time has come for the truth to be known about what he saw… and what he did.