The title may bring murder to mind, and sure enough there is a high body count in these 120 pages, starting with the accidental killing of a dog but also featuring several dead humans, one of them buried alive. Comprising twenty tales in just twenty-odd thousand words, this is easily the shortest book of stories reviewed in this issue, and the only single author collection. The surprising thing is how retro the whole feels in spite of its fashionable styling. The author depicts a surreal suburban world of twitching curtains and warring neighbours that feels almost Fawlty Towers, a vintage cultish Britain in which the absurd or the gross has become the new normal, and as readers our only option is to find it amusing. Challenging.
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