Some cities never sleep — this one never lets you wake.
City Shadows: Volume One is the first instalment in a planned collection of dark, interconnected short stories that merge the grit of classic noir with the unease of philosophical horror. Drawing on the shadowy atmosphere of Chandler and Hammett but laced with the haunting introspection of Poe, it’s a world where the human condition is dissected under a flickering streetlight and morality is as fractured as the pavement beneath your feet.
This volume contains three stand-alone yet thematically linked tales:
The Fatal Fly — A haunting portrait of detachment and decay, where a woman’s spiralling path through the city’s underbelly leads her to a night of poisoned clarity and irreversible consequence.
Toxcity — Detective Mirers navigates a labyrinth of crime, death, and deception in a city that eats itself alive, uncovering truths that refuse to stay buried.
The Doctor of Bedlam — Within the walls of the city’s most cursed hospital, madness is the default and mercy is a myth. A place where those who enter are seldom cured, and some are never seen again.
More than crime fiction, these are stories steeped in philosophy, fatalism, and the inescapable weight of being human. The City Shadows are populated by characters who are broken yet unbowed, desperate yet deliberate — all of them bound by the city’s unspoken rule: you survive, or you don’t.
Readers can expect:
Classic noir atmosphere with a sharpened, modern edge.
Philosophical undertones exploring morality, consequence, and identity.
Elements of horror that linger beyond the page — psychological, atmospheric, and unsettlingly intimate.
Short stories that stand alone, but echo and intertwine in subtle ways, rewarding those who follow the whole collection.
Whether you come for the crime, stay for the philosophy, or get pulled under by the horror, City Shadows invites you into a world where nothing is clean, nothing is certain, and no one walks away unchanged.
Step inside — but don’t expect to leave untouched.