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Baby Oil & Ice: Striptease in East London edited by Laura Clifton; photographs by Sara Ainslee & Julie Cook
Baby Oil and Ice lifts the veil on the shadowy world of pub striptease in London’s East End. Inside its 176 pages are 116 full-colour photographs by… read more
Art/photographic/erotic

Cunt by Stewart Home
When I woke at 5am there was a seventeen year-old with maroon hair lying next to me. I wracked my brains but couldn't remember picking anyone up. I have a sleepwalking problem and I figured this explained the situation. My chat up lines are very good… read more
Modern Fiction

DNA Cowboys Trilogy by Mick Farren
It was inevitable that they should up and leave Pleasant Gap.
The most the people could say, and they said it often, was that Pleasant Gap was a good old town.
Good old town really summed it up. Pleasant Gap was… read more
Science Fiction

Double Take by Mike Ripley
The reason they didn’t pull anybody at the Crackenthorpe Street bust was because Big Benny got an attack of the munchies about six a.m. after a five-hour game of three-card brag and two lines of sampled merchandise. Not that he ever needed that to... read more
Crime & Mystery

First of the True Believers by Paul Charles
In a way, I suppose, meeting Marianne – Marianne Burgess, that is – was as important to me as the legendary meeting that took place when John Lennon’s friend, Ivan Vaughan, introduced him to Paul McCartney. read more
Modern Fiction

The Hackman Blues by Ken Bruen
Jack Dunphy is in the building game. To hear some of them tell it, he is the game. Leastways he used to be, all over south-east London. What's known as a 'plastic paddy'. Third or fourth generation down the pike and as English as toast. But could shovel the brogue as the occasion demanded. read more
Crime & Mystery

Hissing of the Silent Lonely Room by Paul Charles
Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy was prowling up and down the hallway like a bear with a thorn in his paw. Bear-like, he used the back of his hand to knock on the door of the ground-floor flat. There was a sickly-sweet smell wafting around the hallway, even though the hall door was wide open and the cold winter wind… read more
Crime & Mystery

I've Heard the Banshee Sing by Paul Charles
They were close to finishing work on The Black Cat Building on Camden High Street when the body was discovered. Another week, at most, would have been sufficient for the civic opening. Now a police investigation would delay the grand reception for at least two more months. read more
Crime & Mystery

It's Not A Runner Bean by Mark Steel
The tortured soul of the successful comedian has been analysed through the centuries — the tragic tears behind the face of the clown, the internal agonies of Hancock or Lenny Bruce. On the other hand… read more
Biography

Judas Pig by 'Horace Silver'
I was born in the 1960s on one of the shittiest housing estates in London and, let me tell you, things were fucking bleak.
Yet you find people looking back through rose-tinted spectacles and telling you that they were the ‘good old days.’ Days when you could leave your pints of milk on your doorstop and no-one would touch them. That’s as maybe, but you’d still hear about kids going missing on their way to school. For me, childhood was a brutal time, full of bare light bulbs and angry black shadows. read more
Crime & Mystery

Kingdom Swann
'Women will be the death of me,ÿ mutters Kingdom Swann, whistling through his whiskers. He is a large, impressive, old man with a wonderful wealth of beard. He wears a black frock-coat, unbuttoned to show a velvet waistcoat and a pair of nankeen pantaloons. At his throat he sports a necktie of crimson silk… read more
Modern Fiction

Kiss Me Sadly by Maxim Jakubowski
She said pussy. I said cunt.
Just a minor misunderstanding in our confused exploration of the world of lust.
Sexual semantics the way Brits and Americans… read more
Modern Fiction

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen
I learnt this in prison. Compulsive is when you do something repetitively. Obsessive is when you think about something repetitively.
Course, I learnt some other stuff too. Not as clear cut.
Not as defined.
The day of my release, the Governor had me… read more
Crime & Mystery

The McDead by Ken Bruen
‘Am I dying?’
Answer that. Do you lie big and say, like in the movies, ‘Naw, it’s just a scratch,’? Or, clutch his hand real tight and say, ‘I ain’t letting you go, bro’,’?
Chief Inspector Roberts was a professional; a professional liar, among other things. It didn’t teach you that in the police manual. read more
Crime & Mystery

Middleman by Bill James
Don’t, fucking don’t, call me a middleman, right?
But he did not say it. He was alone, eating obnoxious bran for fibre at the breakfast bar, thinking about his trade. Henrietta had gone upstairs to get ready for work.
Middleman – it was a smear. Always lately… read more
Crime & Mystery

Mr Romance by Miles Gibson
Someone was mutilating my collection of Grappler magazines. It began with the issue featuring Junkyard Dog, the big New Jersey brawler who had recently been elected in a readers’ poll as the Crazy Man of the Year. Someone had been cutting holes in him. The Junkyard Dog had lost one eye… read more
Modern Fiction

Noise Abatement by Carol Anne Davis
How vulnerable Walkman-wearers are to advancing enemies Stephen thought as he walked twenty feet behind Lewis and his personal stereo. If he stepped closer he’d hear the headset’s tinny sound. But he’d already heard enough of the man’s music – ten pitiless weeks of it. read more
Crime & Mystery

Painting in the Dark by Russell James
Gottfleisch took a third croissant and dipped it in his blue Delft mug of drinking chocolate. The corpulent, silk-shirted man had lingered so long over breakfast that his drink had cooled, and when he raised the croissant to his fleshy lips a shroud of chocolate skin hung from… read more
Crime & Mystery

Pick Any Title by Russell James
Let’s sort out where everyone was when this farrago started. In London, Mickey Starr was in bed – alone – while Strachey, benefiting from an eight-hour time difference, was sunning herself in San Francisco. I hate to tell you this, especially on page one, but if she had been in bed, Strachey… read more
Crime & Mystery

Safe as Houses by Carol Anne Davis
The body went over the cliff like a weighted rag doll. He watched it fall, half-listening for a drawn out cry. There was none, because if she'd still been alive, they'd still be at the Secret House. Right now he'd be looking for ways to liven her up. read more
Crime & Mystery

The Sandman by Miles Gibson
Tulip stood and stared at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a black satin dress, high-heeled mules and an absurd wig of thick treacle curls that fell, in glittering cascades, to her elbows. Beneath the wig her face seemed… read more
Modern Fiction

Shrouded by Carol Anne Davis
Peace. There was peace to be had here, amongst the uncomplaining. Gently, he helped Terry lower the female corpse on to the waiting metal board. Cold flesh touched cold surface.
‘Cue passport!’ grinned Terry, reaching for an identification tag. read more
Crime & Mystery

Small Change by Jerry Raine
When Chris Small came home from work on Friday evening, there was a large policeman standing outside his gate. He was at least six foot four and was staring at the pub over the road, no doubt wishing he could have a pint. read more
Crime & Mystery

Smalltime by Jerry Raine
It was just a short walk to the nightsafe every evening, and Chris always went on his own.
Ron, the off-licence manager always said, 'If someone attacks you, just let them have the money.'
On this particular evening… read more
Crime & Mystery

Split by Bill James
Abelard gazed at his present setting. He had been there a while: long enough for some heavy thematic thoughts and satisfying moments of mild self-pity. It was a filthy but nicely deep shop doorway off Praed Street, close to London’s Paddington station. From here… read more
Crime & Mystery

Stitch by John B Spencer
'You think, because I have tattoos, wear body jewellery, I should live in a tip?'
'That isn't what I said.'
'It's what you implied.' read more
Crime & Mystery

Taming the Alien by Ken Bruen
If you turned right on the Clapham Road, you could walk along Lorn to the Brixton side. Few do.
Brant had his new place here. The irony didn't escape him.
Lorn. forlorn. Oh yeah.
Since he'd been knifed in the back, he'd… read more
Crime & Mystery

That Angel Look by Mike Ripley
I was sitting in the foyer of a Mexican restaurant looking up the atrium of the Canary Wharf building, having my shoes shined and drinking a pint of Margarita. It was such a perfect moment I just had to… read more
Crime & Mystery

Tooth & Nail by John B Spencer
Darren had six CDs loaded on the sound system in the boot of the XJ6, every one of them Elvis Presley, Country Hits playing now, 'Green Grass of Home', eat your heart out Tom Jones... read more
Crime & Mystery

Vinegar Soup by Miles Gibson
Frank's first memory was the smell of food: fried eggs, bacon, potato, hamburger, hot pies, boiled soup and good, sweet tea stewed to the strength of molasses. The smell was blue and thick as smoke, it billowed beneath the ceiling, clung to the walls and rolled in hot and heavy gusts about the floor. Frank sucked at… read more
Modern Fiction

Vixen by Ken Bruen
SERGEANT DOYLE HAD his feet up on a stool. The station was quiet and he wasn’t anticipating trouble. Football was on the telly so the hordes would be indoors. He’d nicked a danish from the canteen and had been looking… read more
Crime & Mystery