Psychopaths Ltd: and Other Stories — Ben Cheetham

‘Psychopaths Ltd' is a collection of prize-winning, criminally inclined stories that have been published in some of the best magazines and anthologies in the UK and US. The title story featured in an issue of the critically acclaimed Swill Magazine recommended to Ellen Datlow by Harlan Ellison. ‘Stinky' appeared in The Grist Anthology Of New Writing alongside stories by writers such as Helen Simpson and John Boyne. ‘The Vampire of Budapest' appeared in The London Magazine, the UK's oldest literary journal. Several of the stories here were part of a collection shortlisted for Salt Publishing's prestigious The Scott Prize.

Share that bus journey to work or lunch break with a cast of desperate and depraved characters. Meet a stockbroker fantasising about mass-murder; a teenage boy whose favourite pastime is blowing up hamsters; a drifter who thinks he's seen it all, but is about to find out otherwise; a father willing to go to the limits of the law and beyond to find his missing child; a sweet old lady with a dark history; a man bullied because he suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes him to smell of rotting fish; and a wife who suspects her husband of the worst crime imaginable.

Some of these stories tell it straight and nasty, others contain a twist in the tail, all of them will leave you torn between loathing and pity for the lives they portray.