Sean O'Brien’s second collection, Quartier Perdu, is a deeply unsettling and darkly thrilling exploration of the cities underbelly, taking the reader on journeys through the dead parts of town, no-go zones. Whether it’s the single-minded scientist determined to bring light in to every household in Victorian Britain, or the police psychologist probing the mind of a murderer, O'Brien creates his own instantly recognisable fictional landscape, where crime, mystery and disillusion abound.