Welcome to Eddie’s world. Welcome to the constant apocalypse.

It's a world where grave fillers throng the pavements, where ants are plotting to slash and burn us before we do anything to them, where it doesn't pay to have too many dealings with John Satan. Anything can happen. And does. All the time. In such a world a mayor who campaigns on the 'Wooden skulls don't work for long' ticket is bound to go far. So Eddie, our narrator, and Minotaur Babs climb aboard the bandwagon. And the fun begins . . .

'Macabre, twisted, violent, surreal, yet lifted by moments of lyricism, The Inflatable Volunteer is a unique read . . . the actual act of reading this book is more akin to unscrewing your head, and gently bathing your brain in warm chaos . . . a psychedelic treat' SFX Magazine

Brilliantly acerbic pulp pastiche from the author of The Inflatable Volunteer

Beerlight, the city of all our futures, is not a safe place. Crime - occasionally sophisticated, normally violent, always hilarious in its unintended effects - is the motor of the city's economy. Weaponry, rather than fast cars or designer clothes, is the ultimate status symbol. The cast of hoodlums includes burglar extraordinaire Billy Panacea, Kicker Charlie the casino owner, conman cum lawyer Harpoon Specter, Henry Blince the donut obsessed Chief of Police, Getty Hundred Ram the unwitting bank robber and other fun loving felons who hang out at the Delayed Reaction Bar on Valentine Street. The narrator is only referred to as 'the clown' by his fellow criminals, and like all wise jesters, he holds a mirror up to our own world . . .

As English as marmalade and as crazy as California, a blisteringly sharp novel from the author of The Inflatable Volunteer

Bigot Hall is the nightmare home of a family most people would rather forget. Uncle Burst's belief that his face is made of pasta is one of the milder notions with which he regales the family. Uncle Snapper is confined to a treehouse because of the uncontrollable urges he feels once is gun is loaded. Uncle Blute drowned in the lake at the wheel of his Morris Traveller, where he remains perfectly preserved. And Nanny Jack refuses all efforts to bury her and strikes terror into her relatives' hearts as she abandons yet another final resting place. Throughout this happy breed strolls a nameless anti hero, who, when not kidnapped by clowns or puzzling out the fossilised family tree, is passionately in love with his spaced out sister, Adrienne . . .

A disturbing and gripping novel of a man caught between the present and the past

Steve Farris is an unexceptional middle-aged architect with an extraordinary past: when he was nine, his father came home one evening and coolly murdered his mother, brother and sister, before vanishing off the face of the earth. Steve has coped mainly by blotting out the terrible memories, but when writer Rebecca Soltero arrive to interview him about his father, he is forced to reawaken the horrors of his childhood. As Rebecca takes him back, probing his memory, unexpected new facts are revealed with disturbingly shocking parallels to his current situation. Steve knows that if he is to find out whether he too is heading down the road to tragedy, he must discover the truth about his past.

Thomas H. Cook is the author of 14 previous novels and two books of true crime.

Steven and Stella are an English couple living in steamy Laguna. Illegal and on the run, she promotes a gallery, whilst he pilots a boat for a famous plastic surgeon. Stella has affairs with a string of men and Steven likes to watch her. He takes photographs of his wife making love and tapes her adulterous conversations. When Stella announces she has a stalker, Steven congratulates her on having 'this year's must-have accessory'. But is the stalker Steven or is it Stella's deep-rooted paranoia that is inventing one? Or perhaps is it their criminal past catching up with them?
Her debauchery and his voyeurism become a lethal cocktail which threatens to engulf all those concerned. The cop they call in to investigate thinks he is dealing with a pair of English eccentrics. But he too finds himself fighting to escape from Stella's irresistible sexual magnetism. The spiral of blackmail, betrayal and violence which ensues results in a gripping tale of murder and manipulation.

'Danks brings all her writing skills to create a dark tale of voyeurism and betrayal, murder and attempted murder, as the characters dance a saraband of sex without love and life without meaning' Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday
'Hot stuff and so typically un-British!' Time Out
Denise Danks is a journalist and screenwriter. She is author of the Georgina Powers series, the latest of which, Phreak, is now available as an Orion Paperback. She is the first and only female winner of the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Award 1994/1995 for most promising young crime/detective fiction writer. She was also shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger Award 1996 for News as it Happens. She has been described by The Times as 'One of the Best Six Crime Writers in the UK 1999'. Denise Danks is married with two children and lives in London.

The fourth of Jim Lusby's complex, subtle and compulsive McCadden mysteries.

McCadden is hotly tipped to take over the all-Ireland Murder Squad – but that’s before an unholy mess lands on his own doorstep

An elite Murder Squad is about to be re formed, and DI Carl McCadden, currently stationed at Waterford, is hotly tipped to lead the new unit. But then an old acquaintance, an undercover cop named Wallace, turns up with a bizarre story. While on undercover work Wallace stumbled on a body; the next day, he saw a photo of the dead man in the papers, along with a report that he had drowned two hundred miles from where Wallace found him. And then Special Branch men tried to kill Wallace. The official line turns out to be that Wallace has gone rogue, and thrown his lot in with the villains he was supposed to be infiltrating. McCadden knows that the smart thing to do is stay out of it and keep his nose clean for a few weeks until he's landed the big job - especially when he realises that the Minister for Justice, his soon to be boss, is showing signs of misusing his privileged position .