For a short time, Swansea-based author Matthew G Rees resided in Moscow, teaching English. That experience became both the backdrop and the inspiration for this short story collection – though, to be clear, The Snow Leopard Of Moscow & Other Stories isn’t a biography by any stretch of the imagination. If it was, it would be one messed-up confessional, as this collection of yarns delves into the darker side of “the third Rome”… the much darker side.

Told in extraordinary detail, each story has the ability to shock or scare as tales of murder, love and even magic intertwine with layers of wit and dark humour, to create something that defies being simply thrown into the horror short story pile. In TSLOM, Rees’s imagination is allowed to wander, and the results are nothing short of perfection, with not one weak story in the book. All in all, The Snow Leopard Of Moscow & Other Stories is an absolute treat.