Wings of Night

by Reggie Oliver

North Wales in the long hot summer of 1976: the Grand Theatre, Llandrudion Bay is a haunted building. Its owner and manager, the monstrous Mr James Wetherby Pierson, rarely visits the Grand but exerts power from afar, which is why some of his employees refer to him as “God.” There is a mystery about how Pierson acquired the theatre from its previous owner, who is long dead but still seems to inhabit the place with a strange, stunted companion. Then there is the town of Llandrudion Bay itself with its murky secrets, most of which are somehow connected with the theatre. Two young actors, John and Julie, join the company for a summer season of plays and find themselves playing out their roles in a place where the Living and the Dead, Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, are in the dark wings, waiting to make an entrance on stage.

Julie is a sensitive and recognises the evil spirits of the theatre before John does, but John trusts her and is ready to help her rescue Benny, one of the members of the company, from the very mouth of hell itself, which seems to lie beneath the stage of the Grand. He also has to encounter alone the creature that comes out of this hell mouth – the horrible “Mr Chink.”

265 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2025

About the author

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as “a triumph” by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as “the funniest evening in London”, by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour’s Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010.

He is the author of four highly-praised volumes of short fiction: The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (Haunted River 2003), The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (Haunted River 2005), Masques of Satan (Ash Tree 2007), and Madder Mysteries (Ex Occidente 2009). His stories have appeared in over 25 anthologies and, for the third year running, one of his stories appears in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, the most widely read and popular of contemporary horror anthologies.

Reviews

[Paul Saarma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reggie Oliver creates with considerable skill the bygone era of the 1970s, and describes the mysterious events occuring in the summer season of a Welsh theatre and the impact on the theatrical troup who perform there. Sharp characterisation of the players and stage environment, drawn from extensive knowledge, enhances the novel, with unsettling, supernaturally events deftly portrayed, blended with all too human concerns and motivations driving the plot forwards. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.1

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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