The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall is a magnificently assured, dark-hearted and skilled debut collection of stories.

One summer Theresa drowns a wasps' nest in Mr Mordecai's back garden and ends up making a much more sinister discovery. A young mother, Lella, is terrified by a sudden spate of disappearing newborns, and tries desperately to protect her baby by never letting her out of her sight. A couple who meet for the first time at a party soon find that their carefree encounter is not as untainted as it first appears. Extraordinarily compelling, incredibly skilled and pitch perfect in tone, these stories reveal Clare Wigfall to be a writer of enormous talent.