24 stories from established and new authors riffing on the style and mood of Hitchcock movies. Including Peter Swanson, Denise Mina, MW Craven, Lee Child, AK Benedict and William Boyle. These tales have charm, even a touch of nostalgia but there is plenty to chill your bones and some seriously twisty storytelling.

It is fascinating to see how authors pick up on the different aspects of Hitchcock’s filmmaking to spark their stories, channelling Hitchcock’s love of mystery, tension and gripping drama. In Vaseem Khan’s The Hunter, Kal and his daughter Ro are confronted by a couple of white racist hunters on a camping trip, without Ranger Sarah turning up things could have escalated quickly. Of course, it doesn’t end there and with a deft shift of gear, a woman’s body is found, things are not as simple as they seem. SA Cosby goes for the darker side of Hitch with a tale of revenge in Split Your Silver Tongue. Tolliver is surprised that his ex Rose left him something in her will when she died. When he goes to collect he underestimates the grief of the woman who brought her up. Renowned film critic David Thomson’s Like a Bun at Bewley’s is a play by play walk through encounter and what follows, it feels exactly like how a film scene might unfold.

Jerome Charyn Russian Hill opens with a young boy who has a closer connection to his ex-cop bodyguard than his cold hearted father. Rather than become like his dad, a tycoon, he graduated law school but wants to join the police. Gradually this becomes a take on one of Hitchcock’s most iconic films about obsession. While Nadine Matheson tells the story of Michael and Gia in The Falcon Hotel. We ask what is real and what is imagined, in a tale of infidelity, jealousy and murder.

Many of the authors have chosen to reflect on the darker, twistier elements of the great director’s work, all the better for a surprising and inventive collection of stories. Humour, metafiction, tales verging on horror, noir, it’s all here from a top array of crime writers convincingly sharing the love of Hitchcock.
Published by No Exit Press