Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

A London solicitor starts pulling at a loose thread involving his oldest friend, a respectable doctor, and a small, violent man who seems to have an unsettling hold over him. Something is clearly very wrong, and nobody involved will say plainly what it is. That refusal to explain is the whole engine of the thing.

This isn't jump-scare horror. The fear builds slowly, through the creeping sense that something perfectly ordinary has quietly gone rotten underneath. It gets under your skin rather than making you jump.

It's short, so it suits a night when you want a proper chill without giving up your whole evening for it. Read it with the lamp on, tea in hand rather than anything that needs both.

Stevenson was writing about respectability with something rotten hiding directly underneath it, and that's an unease that hasn't dated in the slightest. Good company for anyone who likes their horror quiet, clever and a little too close to home.