To call Andrew Michael Hurley’s new book a novel Barrowbeck feels slightly misleading. This is a collection of stories which share the same claustrophobic setting: Barrowbeck, a fictional town with a haunted past, and a haunted future. The stories unfurl in chronological order, starting in 860AD and taking us all the way through the town’s history to a climate-ravaged 2041.

‘Unfurl’ is the right word, too, because as existing fans of Hurley will know, he’s a master of doom-laden atmosphere, and these are stories that slowly reveal their secrets under lingering grey clouds. The highlight is Autumn Pastoral, a story that reads like MR James at his best, while others, such as Sisters and An Afternoon Of Cake And Lemonade, leave their hooks in the reader’s imagination long after the last sentence.

Like most short story collections, some stories are less effective than others – especially those early in Barrowbeck, which are all atmosphere and no pay-off. This, combined with narrative perspectives that tell rather than show, can occasionally lead to a lack of tension. But overall, the high points here are very high, and as the cold nights draw in, there’s no better time to take this chilling journey through the centuries.