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by Stephen Volk

To Read

One evening in 1906 a chubby little boy
of seven, son of a London greengrocer, is taken by his father to visit the
local police station.

 

There he suddenly finds himself,
inexplicably, locked up for a crime he hasn’t committed – or has he? Blinking
into sunlight, traumatized by his overnight stay, he is told by his father the
next morning: “Now you know what happens to naughty little boys!” But the
incident is the catalyst for a series of events that will scar, and create, the
world’s leading Master of Terror in the century to come…

*

The boy is Alfred Hitchcock.

The story is the gripping and evocative
new novella by Stephen Volk, writer of the highly-acclaimed novella Whitstable –
which featured Peter Cushing as its central character and was published in 2013
(also by Spectral Press) to coincide with the centenary of the great actor’s
death.

 

Leytonstone – like Whitstable –
elevates fact (in this case an anecdote the famous director told repeatedly
throughout his life) into resonant and poignant fiction, lifting the veil on
not only the innocent and troubled young “Fred” but his emotionally needy
mother and a father constantly struggling to do the right thing. But what none
of them knows is that, after that fateful night and its consequences, their
lives will be changed forever…

*

As a screenwriter used to creating fear
and terror for such directors as William Friedkin and Ken Russell, Stephen Volk
has long been fascinated by both Hitchcock’s films and Hitchcock the man. “I
wanted to explore what makes a person want to frighten others for a living,” he
says. “But I’m all too aware that Hitch was a mass of contradictions, and any
absolute ‘truth’ is an elusive beast, as notable recent films have proven. This
is my Hitchcock – a scared little boy.”

 

Whitstable and Leytonstone are
parts one and two of Volk’s putative series of thematically related but
separate fictions, to be called The Dark Masters Trilogy.

 

Also featuring an Afterword by renowned
novelist, screenwriter, and director Stephen Gallagher.