Charles Birkin delivers one of his leanest, meanest collections with Dark Menace, a set of cold-blooded stories where the real horror isn’t monsters—it’s people. Birkin was a master of the “quiet cruelty” tale, and this book shows him at full voltage: polite English settings hiding moral rot, everyday characters pushed into grotesque corners, and a creeping sense that violence is always just one bad decision away. These are sharp, nasty little shockers—claustrophobic, fatalistic, and dripping with that mid-century British dread Birkin did better than almost anyone. Perfect for readers who like their horror refined but ruthless, with endings that snap shut like a steel trap.
