Published in America but not in his native Britain, Ramsey Campbell’s psychological thriller The Last Voice They Hear involved an investigative journalist who was challenged by his long-missing brother to solve a series of murders, with his own family as the prize.

Although not usually known for their horror or dark fantasy work, Terry Brooks’ A Knight of the World was the sequel to his bestseller Running with the Demon, while Homebody was a haunted house novel from Orson Scott Card.

Legacies was the second Repairman Jack novel from F. Paul Wilson (“writing as Colin Andrews” on the UK edition). The mysterious fixer became involved with a woman intent on destroying a house she had just inherited, and also the evil Arabs, Japanese agents, and American hit men who were out to discover the secrets concealed in the dilapidated mansion.

Charles Grant’s “Millennium Quartet” continued with Chariot, the third novel in the series about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This time Plague used smallpox to wreak havoc in a world already at the mercy of Famine and Death, and only Las Vegas was spared. The author also launched a new series about a private occult investigation service with Black Oak 1: Genesis and 2: The Hush of Dark Wings.

The Searchers: City of Iron by Chet Williamson marked the beginning of a new X Files-type trilogy about a team of three CIA agents investigating the supernatural. Phil Rickman’s The Wine of Angels was the first in a series featuring new vicar Merrily Watkins and a mystery linked to a town’s 17th century witch-hunts.

Set in the near-future, Peter James’ Denial was about a psychiatrist who gave the wrong advice to a patient, an aging movie actress, who killed herself as a result. Her sociopath son held the doctor responsible and decided to avenge her death. Soho Black by Christopher Fowler concerned the high-pressure lifestyle of a failing film executive who dropped dead in a trendy bar one evening, and by doing so revitalised his career.