Spooky Bundle: 6 Chilling Reads and a Tote

For a prescient dystopian nightmare: They

They, by Kay Dick

Afterword by Lucy Scholes

“A creepily prescient tale in which anonymous mobs target artists and destroy their art for the crime of individual vision. Insidiously horrifying!”

—Margaret Atwood

For a sly and salacious noir: Rent Boy

Rent Boy, by Gary Indiana

“Danny is a rent boy, an architecture student, a waiter, and hot! . . . A relentless stream of social commentary, careening between sex, comedy, and murder, Rent Boy is a hysterical romp through the worlds of contemporary culture and crime.”

—Fantastic Fiction

For a “nastily horrific” satire: Lord Jim at Home

Lord Jim at Home, by Dinah Brooke

Foreword by Ottessa Moshfegh

“There is a lot of pain in Lord Jim at Home. And a lot of humor.… If it weren’t such a pleasure to read, I’d say that Lord Jim at Home—read by a novelist, like me—was an instrument of torture. It’s that good.”

—Ottessa Moshfegh, from the Foreword

For a very cozy murder mystery: The Girls

The Girls, by John Bowen

“Of all the writers of suspense novels, John Bowen is the most startlingly offbeat: politely he leads you down the garden path—look at the roses, he murmurs, the dismembered foot, the Victorian teahouse which contains . . . satisfying horror!”

—Gore Vidal

For a gorgeous Gothic thriller: Twice Lost

Twice Lost, by Phyllis Paul

Foreword by Jeremy Davies

“[Paul writes with] an almost medieval sense of good and ill. One enters a different world—compelling, fearful, mysterious. The characters live, the place has frightening reality . . . a kind of violent beauty.”

—Elizabeth Jane Howard

For a disturbed anti-hero: The Murderer

The Murderer, by Roy Heath

“The Murderer, Roy Heath's masterpiece, is written with immediacy and precision. In a few sentences, Heath creates a psychological tension that is totally convincing and gripping. Slowly, as the main character grows more obsessed and distant from others, he also becomes more complex and fascinating and memorable." 

—Colm Tóibín