A TV reality show host helps to restore an East End music hall and uncovers the dreadful secret of Mrs Midnight and her Animal Comedians. . . . A historian travels to Switzerland to ghost the autobiography of an exiled Balkan king and encounters a sinister cult. . . . The Master of an Oxford college tries to introduce a dubious piece of modern sculpture into his college chapel with dire consequences. . . . A strange meeting takes place on a playing field between an officer on leave from the trenches and his former headmaster. . .The settings and characters in Reggie Oliver’s fifth collection of ‘strange’ stories are as varied and unusual as ever, though, as in previous volumes, the theatre forms the milieu of a number of his tales. But the theatres are not just English ones, in the provinces and the West End: one is on the Black Sea; another in post-colonial Kenya. Themes are equally varied, but underlying all is a deep sense of the spiritual under-currents just below the surface of everyday existence, and the precariousness of ‘normality’.‘...by miles, the best living exponent of the spooky yarn,’ Barry Humphries.

A man buys a CD bearing the title The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler and finds himself dogged by a mysterious stranger. . . . A nun in eighteenth-century France acquires an inconvenient gift of prophesy. . . . An amateur dramatics group turns out to be something far more sinister. . . . An aristocrat tries to exploit a haunted room at his country seat, but has the tables turned on him by a member of the royal family. . . .The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler is Reggie Oliver’s second collection of ‘strange stories’. It is now republished with new illustrations. Oliver’s characteristic wit, style, shrewd observation of humanity, and sense of place and time are all in evidence. He also has the simple gift of knowing how to tell a good story. As Glen Cavaliero says in his introduction ‘no one story is like another’, but they all point to the dark metaphysical currents that lurk beneath the surface of our daily lives.

In his first two collections of supernatural tales, THE DREAMS OF CARDINAL VITTORINI and THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES OF ADOLF HITLER, playwright, actor, and theatre director Reggie Oliver demonstrated his mastery of the classic ghost story. Now, in his eagerly anticipated third collection, MASQUES OF SATAN, Oliver shows why he is being hailed as one of the best and freshest new voices to emerge in the genre in recent years. Many of the tales in the collection draw on the author's theatrical background, and in such stories as 'Mmm-Delicious', 'Puss-Cat', 'Blind Man's Box', 'Grab a Granny Night', 'Mr Poo-Poo', 'The Road from Damascus', and the stunning novella 'Shades of the Prison House' he takes us backstage into a world of easy friendship and a surface glamour which conceals something much more dark and desperate. Oliver's talent for pastiche shines in 'The Silver Cord', which won the Arthur Machen Short Story Competition, while 'The Children of Monte Rosa' turns a friendly invitation to a holiday villa into something deeply disturbing. All of these tales, as well as the four others collected in this volume, make MASQUES OF SATAN Oliver's richest and most satisfying book to date, one that deserves to be on the shelf of every reader who appreciates fine writing and is searching for chills as literate as they are frightening.

A doomed relationship in a seaside town that persists after death. . . . A convent in which there is always the unacknowledged presence of an extra nun. . . . A balding actor who acquires a mysterious wig after his rival goes missing. . . . A brilliant inventor who becomes trapped inside his own sinister computer game. . . . A sixteenth-century cardinal who is tormented by dreams of the sect he has persecuted.Variety and originality of setting, strength of characterisation, stylistic elegance and narrative power are qualities for which Reggie Oliver has become well-known in his five volumes of ‘strange stories’. All are present in this groundbreaking debut volume, first published in 2003. It was a nominee for best collection of 2003 in the International Horror Guild Awards.‘Oliver’s ability to create a sense of time and place in every one of these stories is exemplary. . . . As a work of spiritual terror it has few peers. . . .’ Jim Rockhill, All Hallows October 2003.‘Oliver’s sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue never desert him. . . . He rediscovers many if not all the elements that make the English Ghost Story Classic.’ Ramsey Campbell, Dark Horizons, 2003.‘A masterpiece of nebulous unease. . . . This impressive volume . . . richly deserves a place on your shelves.’ David Longhorn, Supernatural Tales, No. 6, Autumn 2003.