Normally I recommend that one read a single short story from a collection each night before bed but that's not the case with this wonderful collection. Read them in the light,. This is Irish Noir at its best. The 13 stories here are about dreadful crimes and scary things, It's divided into two sections- New Monsters and Old Friends. As I'd not read Neville before I might have missed the additional pleasure his fans will have from seeing familiar characters but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it any less. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a great and interesting read.

I am not familiar with Stuart Neville, and I cannot BELIEVE it! This was a phenomenal collection of short stories. They were dark and noir, but also incredibly unsettling and otherworldly. I most enjoyed the first half of the collection, grouped under "Monsters," but the second half was also good, just more noir than supernatural. Neville writes children suuuuuuper eerily and perfectly. The mastery of this collection is the incredible atmospheric quality he creates, with grit, chill, dark, and eeriness, almost Gothic without the historical feel. Even when his stories are more about a gritty mobster underbelly of this Northern Ireland setting, something just feels perfectly, darkly "off" and unsettling. I will definitely be adding Stuart Neville to my must-read authors.

Outstanding collection in every possible way! Every single story in this collection of Neville's haunting Irish noir is excellent. Dark, brooding, filled with ghosts and other spirits, mixtures of faith and violence, and, of course, the loss of faith. Young children seeing things that can't be real and men condemned to never escape the ghosts of their pasts, not even in the water closet. Read this one slowly and savor every page. It's that good.

This was a really great short story collection featuring 12 stories and 1 novella which has an introduction by the author that gives you a description or the background for each story and an amazing foreword by John Connolly. I have never read any of Stuart Neville's books and I really want to now. This was set up in 2 parts in Part 1 New Monsters the stories are largely more on the supernatural side with a side of tragedy and sadness as well while Part 2 Old Friends ties into characters who have appeared in his other novels which ends with a novella about what happens to Jack Lennon and his daughter Ellen after the events in The Final Silence.
So this was a really fast read and every story was super interesting and Stuart Neville is a really great engaging writer. Even though I had no clue about any of the characters in Part 2 since I haven’t read any of his other novels, it didn’t matter I wasn’t lost and every story was so intriguing that it kept me engaged even when I wondering what was happening here. So all in all a fabulous read and can’t wait to start on his other novels.

Thanks to Soho Crime and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

Neville writes really well, so it's no surprise that this is a solid collection of stories. Decent variety and most were engaging. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

I wasn't expecting to enjoy these short stories as much as I did, but they all felt so perfect. And guess what makes them all immediately intriguing? Murder. We've got a lot of death in this book and it never disappoints!

There was one thing that completely blew me away in The Traveller and Other Stories. And that was the repetitive lines the author uses in each story. You'll definitely notice it in the first story, where a boy's mother is missing and he waits for her to come back from the library on the ferry every day. As the reader, you're obviously expecting the worst and there are a couple of lines here that are like a gut punch. In other stories like The Night Hag (which was one of my favorites) there was another great repetition of a piece of dialogue that had a very different meaning each time. Little things like that bumped this up from a four-star to a five star read to me.

I enjoyed almost every single story here. Like I said, most of them involve murder. But it's not like they're all detective stories, some felt more like horror shorts to me.

My only complaint would be the last story, The Traveller. The short stories were probably an excuse for not writing a novella from a continuation of one of Neville's previous works, but I honestly didn't think it worked well with the rest of the bunch. (And I ended up enjoying the short stories more anyways.) While the others were creative and spooky, the last twenty-five percent to me felt a little dry. But, I wouldn't let one of the thirteen stories bump it down an entire star.

An interesting read, where I read a story every day and was almost never disappointed. I look forward to its pub day and thank you for NetGalley and the publisher for granting my wish and giving me a copy!

Neville's short stories are just as intriguing as his novels. This collection of stories is great for new and old readers of his work. I'd recommend this collection to both my crime and horror customers.

The Traveller and Other Stories is a combination of short stories by one of my favourite Authors.

Stuart Neville is an author who does not disappoint, and this combination of stories has some familiar characters from his previous books, and some new ones as well.

A 3.5 Star rating from me

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for my advanced copy to read and review.

I love short horror stories that make you think and this is one of them. I have never read anything from Stuart Neville but I look forward to checking out his novels. Thank you to the publisher for granting my wish for this copy!

Stuart Neville wrote one of the best debuts I have ever read with The Twelve/ The Ghosts of Belfast. In this book of short stories, some of them delve again into the lives of Gerry And Jack and some loose ends are tied up. The other stories are great, quite dark and some verge on horror, each a masterpiece in itself. My favourite, apart from the novella The Traveller, is the first story about the little boy waiting at the ferry for his mother to return home.
For those that have read The Twelve and wondered what happened to Jack and his daughter, The Traveller brings them together again with the ghost of Gerry and the Traveller, a killer for hire.
I loved this collection of stories and if you haven’t read The Twelve and the subsequent novels featuring Jack Lennon, then you are in for a real treat.
#TheTravellerandotherstories #NetGalley