Craig Russell

A terrifying novel set in Czechoslovakia in 1935, in which a brilliant young psychiatrist takes his new post at an asylum for the criminally insane that houses only six inmates--the country's most depraved murderers--while, in Prague, a detective struggles to understand a brutal serial killer who has spread fear through the city, and who may have ties to the asylum In 1935, Viktor Kosárek, a psychiatrist newly trained by Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The state-of-the-art facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle outside of Prague, though the site is infamous for concealing dark secrets going back many generations. The asylum houses the country's six most treacherous killers--known to the staff as The Woodcutter, The Clown, The Glass Collector, The Vegetarian, The Sciomancer, and The Demon--and Viktor hopes to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon known as The Devil Aspect. As he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, five men and one woman, Viktor must face the disturbing possibility that these six may share another dark truth. Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (dubbed Leather Apron in the newspapers), realizes that the killer is imitating the most notorious serial killer from a century earlier--London's Jack the Ripper. Smolak turns to the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind, though he worries that Leather Apron might have some connection to the six inmates in the asylum. Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this stylishly written, tightly coiled, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down.

The Devil Aspect

Edward Hyde has a strange gift - or a curse - he keeps secret from all but his physician. He experiences two realities, one real, the other a dreamworld state brought on by a neurological condition. When murders in Victorian Edinburgh echo the ancient Celtic threefold death ritual, Captain Edward Hyde hunts for those responsible

Hyde

Two women are killed in the same horrific, ritualistic manner. The murderer taunts the police with e-mails. It seems clear that a serial killer is at work, selecting victims at random and living out some twisted fantasy. But, as Jan Fabel and his murder team investigate further, nothing is as it first seems. They are drawn into a dark half-world of Viking myth and legend, of obscure religious cults, of political intrigue and of a violent struggle to seize control of the city. And as Fabel desperately races to track down the killer before more killings take place, he and his team come face to face with a cold, brutal menace they could never have predicted. A greater evil than they could ever have imagined.

Blood Eagle

A girl's body lies, posed, on the pale sand of a Hamburg beach, a message concealed in her hand. 'I have been underground, and now it is time for me to return home...' Jan Fabel, of the Hamburg murder squad, struggles to interpret the twisted imagery of a dark and brutal mind. Four days later, a man and a woman are found deep in woodland, their throats slashed deep and wide, the names 'Hansel' and 'Gretel', in the same, tiny, obsessively neat writing, rolled tight and pressed into their hands. As it becomes clear that each new crime is a grisly reference to folk stories collected almost two hundred years ago by the Brothers Grimm, the hunt is on for a serial killer who is exploring our darkest, most fundamental fears. A predator who kills and then disappears into the shadows. A monster we all learned to fear in childhood.

Brother Grimm

A Novel

Devil's Playground

First novel in the Lennox series, featuring a shady investigator on the tough streets of 1950's Glasgow.

Lennox

Christopher Galt

When people around the world begin experiencing events that defy reality, psychiatrist John Macbeth and a team of FBI agents and scientists assemble to find out if this is really a spiritual phenomenon or something much worse.

Biblical

Jan Fabel is a haunted man. Head of the Polizei Hamburg's Murder Commission, Fabel has dealt with the dead for nearly two decades, but when a routine enquiry becomes a life-threatening - and life-changing - experience, he finds himself on much closer terms with death than ever before. Two years later, Fabel's first case at the Murder Commission comes back to haunt him: Monika Krone's body is found at last, fifteen years after she went missing. Monika - ethereally beautiful, intelligent, cruel - was the centre of a group of students obsessed with the gothic. Fabel re-opens the case. What happened that night, when Monika left a party and disappeared into thin air? When men involved with Monika start turning up dead, Fabel realizes he is looking for a killer with both a hunger for revenge and a taste for the gothic. What he doesn't know is that someone has been aiding and grooming a deranged escapee as his own, personal tool for revenge. A truly gothic monster to be let loose on the world.

The Ghosts of Altona

Two high profile victims - a former Left-wing radical turned environmental campaigner and a geneticist researching the possibility of inherited memory - are found murdered within 24 hours of each other. Both men have been scalped. Forensic tests reveal that single red hairs left at each scene belong to neither victim, but were cut from the same head - twenty years earlier. Jan Fabel and his murder team find themselves under political and media pressure to track down a killer whom the press has already christened 'The Hamburg Hairdresser'. Connections in the victims' pasts begin to emerge, but Fabel's team is working against the clock. Fabel is caught in a web of intrigue, obsession and revenge that seemingly spans sixteen centuries.He must discover the crucial link between an ancient mummified body, a long-disbanded terrorist group and its infamous leader and a killer who believes he has been reincarnated to exact a terrible revenge on those who betrayed him in a previous life.

Eternal

1927: Mary Rourke—a Hollywood studio fixer—is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about… a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true.  

1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground—a Holy Grail for film buffs—may exist. He knows his Hollywood history and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time.  

The Devil’s Playground is Craig Russell’s tour de force, a richly researched and constructed thriller that weaves through the Golden Age of Hollywood and reveals a blossoming industry built on secrets, invented identities, and a desperate pursuit of image. As Mary Rourke charges headlong through the egos, distractions, and traps that threaten to take her down with the doomed production, she discovers a truth far more sinister than she—or we—could have imagined.

The Devil's Playground

November 1956. The world is in turmoil. While the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Uprising boil away in the background, Lennox has more immediate concerns, like getting his personal life, and his business, back on track. So, when a woman comes into Lennox's office and hires him to follow her husband, whom she suspects of leading a double life, it seems the perfect case. Straightforward, typical - if a little sordid - and most of all, legal. But as he begins to dig deeper, Lennox realizes that this is no ordinary case of marital infidelity. He finds himself caught by the police in a room with a dead body; pursued by shadowy members of the intelligence community; and once more a target of the Three Kings, the crime bosses who between them run Glasgow's underworld. Lennox must again draw on the violent, war-damaged part of his personality that he has tried to keep buried, in order to survive...

Dead Men and Broken Hearts

The third fantastic thriller featuring shady investigator Lennox as he stalks Glasgow's tough streets.

The Deep Dark Sleep

Thriller

Wolfsfährte

WINNER OF THE 2021 McILVANNEY PRIZE FOR CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A terrifying thrill ride' CHRIS BROOKMYRE 'Craig Russell is peerless. Absolutely stunning' M W CRAVEN 'Five stars from me' JAMES OSWALD 'Kept me reading through the night. Spectacular' CHRIS WHITTAKER Edward Hyde has a strange gift - or a curse - that he keeps secret from all. He experiences two realities: one real, the other a dreamworld state brought on by a neurological condition. When murders in Victorian Edinburgh echo the ancient Celtic threefold death ritual, Captain Edward Hyde hunts for those responsible. In the process he becomes entangled in a web of Celticist occultism and dark scheming by powerful figures. The answers are there to be found, not just in the real world but in the sinister symbolism of Edward Hyde's otherworld, and time is running out. He must find the killer, or lose his mind. From international bestselling author Craig Russell comes a chilling psychological thriller . . . 'Stephen King meets Robert Louis Stevenson . . . guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine' David Hewson 'A brooding, stunningly atmospheric tale . . . multi-layered and intricately plotted, this is a Gothic thriller from the hands of a master' Margaret Kirk 'Deliciously dark . . . Another winner for a consummate storyteller' Douglas Skelton 'A Gothic masterpiece which will lead you so far into the darkness that you won't know who to trust. Another splendid offering from a writer who is top of his game' Theresa Talbot 'An engaging Gothic thriller full of atmosphere and surprises' Irish Independent

Hyde: WINNER OF THE 2021 McILVANNEY PRIZE FOR BEST CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR

''A blood-pumping, nerve-shredding thriller . . . ingenious'' (A. J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window) How do you find a killer when you''re surrounded by madness? 1935. As Europe prepares itself for a calamitous war, six homicidal lunatics - the so-called ''Devil''s Six'' - are confined in a remote castle asylum in rural Czechoslovakia. Each patient has their own dark story to tell and Dr Viktor Kosárek, a young psychiatrist using revolutionary techniques, is tasked with unlocking their murderous secrets. At the same time, a terrifying killer known as ''Leather Apron'' is butchering victims across Prague. Successfully eluding capture, it would seem his depraved crimes are committed by the Devil himself. Maybe they are... and what links him with the insane inmates of the Castle of the Eagles? Only the Devil knows. And it is up to Viktor to find out. ''Deep, dark, and twisty, The Devil Aspect will keep you up all night reading... With all the lights on. Russell has created a gripping masterpiece of a thriller!'' Alex Grecian, New York Times bestselling author of The Yard ''A blood-pumping, nerve-shredding thriller - elegant, edgy, ingenious. Craig Russell conjures not one but two unforgettable settings: Prague between the wars, pulsing with menace, and a Gothic mental asylum, as exciting a house of horrors as I''ve ever visited. You''ll enter both with dread. You''ll dwell in them with relish'' A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window ''Sensational serial killer novel . . . in which twists are both jaw-dropping and logical . . . a mind-blowing story line that will appeal to fans of Caleb Carr and Thomas Harris'' Publishers Weekly ''Steeped in the chilling folklore of Eastern Europe and echoing the dread of a barbaric war to come, The Devil Aspect snatches the reader by the lapels for a thrilling, twisting trip through the darkest corridors of the human mind'' Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse ''A tour de force: a clever and visceral thriller . . . an ending that left me dazed'' Lincoln Child, New York Times bestselling author ''Dark, stylish and packed with jaw-dropping twists, The Devil Aspect stayed with me long after I''d turned the final page. Part Gothic horror, part crime thriller, it''s an astonishing piece of work'' M. W. Craven, author of The Puppet Show ''A superior thriller, at once stylish, absorbing and compulsive . . . a taut and chilling tale, expertly crafted . . . I was gripped from the very first page right up to that haunting denouement'' Laura Carlin, author of The Wicked Cometh ''Well-crafted gothic crime . . . A smart, atmospheric and entertaining read'' Kirkus Reviews ''A Gothic masterpiece in psychological horror and creeping dread, The Devil Aspect is as disturbing as it is compelling. Be prepared to read it in one sitting - and to sleep with the lights on for a long time to come'' Neil Broadfoot, author of No Man''s Land ''Deliciously authentic and darkly atmospheric . . . a game-changer for the world of crime fiction'' Graham Smith, author of Death in the Lakes Join other readers in discovering the The Devil Aspect ''A fabulously gothic tale . . . I was reminded of the writing of Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson'' Netgalley Reviewer ''An astonishing virtuoso piece of gothic horror writing. This is a must read for all fans of literary fiction, great crime and horror writing'' Netgalley Reviewer ''Skilfully written and richly imagined'' Netgalley Reviewer ''Details are doled out in delicious morsels . . . the prose is extremely cinematic with intense and provocative images'' Netgalley Reviewer ''Sophisticated, polished . . . the story has a decidedly Gothic feel'' Netgalley Reviewer ''Fascinating, compelling, horrifying'' Netgalley Reviewer ''I would be shocked to see this not made into a movie'' Netgalley Reviewer ''A kaleidoscopic melange of myth, history, politics, bigotry, psychology, romance, crime, mystery and sublime horror'' Netgalley Reviewer ''A stunning historical thriller'' Netgalley Reviewer ''This book scared the hell out of me . . . the ending blew me away'' Netgalley Reviewer

Where the Devil Hides

'The kind of thriller writing that made me want to be a writer' Chris Brookmyre 'Storytelling at its very best!' Michael Connelly Fast-paced, stylish, and blackly funny noir for fans of Philip Kerr and Raymond Chandler Glasgow in the 1950s - private investigator Lennox is keeping a low profile, enjoying a fling with the daughter of shady bookie and greyhound breeder MacFarlane. When MacFarlane is found bludgeoned to death, Lennox is a suspect. Luckily, he has a solid gold alibi - he was in bed with the victim's daughter at the time. It turns out MacFarlane was into some seriously dodgy stuff. One of Glasgow's notorious Three Kings, crime boss Willie Sneddon, is involved and he's not a man Lennox wants to cross. But there's an even bigger player out there, an elusive villain who makes the Three Kings look like minnows. Lennox is going to get his fingers burnt, badly. Praise for Craig Russell: 'Another brilliantly sharp, witty and tough take on a hard city at a hard time . . . a former cop, Russell is Britain's rising crime-writing star' Daily Mirror 'Through his humorous lens, time and place become razor-sharp . . . The lightness of touch is a breath of fresh air in this most crowded of genres . . . This is tartan neo-noir at its most entertaining' Sunday Herald

The Long Glasgow Kiss

Winner -- Gold Medal Moonbeam Awards Finalist -- Aurora Awards Finalist -- McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award A CCBC Best Books for Kids and Teens selection

Black Bottle Man

"The Cologne police know a woman is going to die. They know the day it will happen. And they re powerless to stop it. They call on an outside expert- Jan Fabel, head of Hamburg s Murder Squad and Germany s leading authority on serial killers. Fabel is on the point of leaving the police for good, but Carnival in Cologne is a time when the world goes crazy, and he is drawn into the hunt for the Carnival Cannibal. What he doesn t know is that he is on a collision course with a crack special forces unit from Ukraine and a disturbed colleague with a score to settle. Fabel finds himself on a trail of betrayal and vengeance, violence and death. And once more he faces his greatest enemy. The true Master of the Carnival."

The Carnival Master

'Superb! The Devil's Playground is imagination on steroids... breathtaking!' Jeffery Deaver 'A terrifying tale of the true power in Hollywood... (Russell's) precise, gorgeous prose shines' New York Times 'Addictive. . . the most sheerly entertaining novel I've raced through in at least a year. . . fresh, forceful, elegant but wild' A.J. Finn 'The Devil's Playground is definitely on the shortlist for best mystery of the year' Bookpage.com 'When it comes to Gothic crime, Craig Russell is peerless. Absolutely stunning' M W Craven FROM CWA DAGGER AND DOUBLE McILVANNEY AWARD WINNER CRAIG RUSSELL COMES ANOTHER DARK, GRIPPING MASTERPIECE . . . A dark, riveting thriller set in 1920s Hollywood about "the greatest horror movie ever made", the curse said to surround it, and a deadly search, decades later, for the single copy rumoured still to exist. 1927: Hollywood studio fixer Mary Rourke is called to the palatial home of "the most desirable woman in the world", silent movie actress Norma Carlton, star of The Devil's Playground. When Rourke finds Carlton dead, she wonders if the dark rumours she's heard are true: that The Devil's Playground really is a cursed production. But nothing in Hollywood is ever what it seems, and cynical fixer Rourke, more used to covering up the truth for studio bosses, finds herself seeking it out. 1967: Paul Conway, film historian and fervid silent movie aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumour: that a single copy of The Devil's Playground-a Holy Grail for film buffs that was supposedly cursed and lost to time-may exist. His search takes him deep into the Mojave Desert, to an isolated hotel that hasn't changed in forty years but harbours only one occupant-and a shocking secret. Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil's Playground is in fact Hollywood itself. Praise for The Devil's Playground 'Horrifying, mesmerising, beautifully imagined. The Devil's Playground is Craig Russell at his unrivalled best' Chris Whittaker 'The Devil's Playground has a depth of period detail and atmosphere that lifts it above the ordinary. It's elegant, absorbing and thrilling' Michael Malone 'Totally engaging' Kathy Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan series 'Brilliantly written, with repeated surprises' The Critic 'Seamlessly blends noir, gothic and mystery in a way that's unique to crime fiction. Populated with a truly memorable cast, Playground is a guaranteed one-sitting read...and how can you resist a novel about the scariest movie of all time? Bravo!' Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bone Collector Praise for Hyde 'Stephen King meets Robert Louis Stevenson... an imaginative gothic tale guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine the next time you walk a dark Edinburgh night' David Hewson 'Gloriously diabolical. A terrifying thrill ride through the hidden chasms of the human soul' Chris Brookmyre 'I absolutely adored it. Intense, harrowing and hugely entertaining. . . Spectacular' Chris Whitaker 'The story is a thrilling ride through the murky depths of madness and horror, written with all Craig's trademark skill and style. Definitely five stars from me' James Oswald 'An engaging Gothic thriller full of atmosphere and surprises' Irish Independent 'Russell writes a pacy, ever-twisting mystery that will keep you turning the pages' Ian Rankin

Where horror is silent . . .

Akasha

Asum

Speaking of us as spiritual beings before becoming human beings, this book reveals how to master our thoughts and emotions to produce a much happier and fulfilled life, how to make a deep personal contact with a hidden spiritual centre that dwells within each of us. It also offers tools for manifesting all that we desire in our personal lives.

Craig Russell

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