THERE'S ENOUGH sunlight on the outside to risk a little darkness on the inside. How about a trot through the bleakest that literature has to offer?

Start snappy and easy with Patricia Cornwell. The Kay Scarpetta series has been a bit muddled in recent years, and a slew of bargain-basement imitations from other writers has wiped off a little of the lustre and originality, but Postmortem (Pocket, £7/offer £6.65), Cornwell's first and best, is tight, pacy - and rather brilliant.

From Cornwell's Richmond move a few miles north to DC. If you think Bush's foreign policy is the scariest thing to come out of this city then you haven't thought hard enough about The Exorcist (Corgi, £7.99/£7.59). Don't be put off by the film - it relied too heavily on special effects to be an evergreen chiller. Not so the book. Unbelievably, William Peter Blatty started life as a comedy writer. Here he excels in moral, intelligent prose, giving what might otherwise be consigned to horror annals an authenticity and believability that still makes some Georgetownians avoid those famous suicide steps.

From the Times Archive: A 1974 Miami priest sues the creators of the book and film 'The Exorcist'

Next, off to Japan and Natsuo Kirino's Out (Vintage, £7.99/£7.59). Set against the backdrop of a Japanese lunchbox factory, food production and human dismemberment live side by side. The duplex becomes the abattoir, normality co-exists with the unthinkable. In its quieter moments Out also offers a fascinating snapshot of Japanese society.

The above are shockers writ big. Hard to put down. But let's be draconian. Summer is easy street, so what better time to give the old grey matter a workout? In the spirit of challenge here are three titles not explicitly packaged as chillers - you'll need to concentrate to find the real disquiet at the heart of these books. Ease yourself in with something contemporary. The Broken Shore (Quercus, £6.99/£6.64), by Peter Temple. His Elmore Leonard-inspired style is taut and fat-trimmed. You'll come away with a sense of loneliness, broken lives and a very Australian twist on the pioneer spirit.

Kafka's novella Metamorphosis (Penguin, £8.99/£8.54) - with one of the most famous and disputed sentences in translated fiction: “As Gregor Samsa awoke... from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed... into a gigantic insect” - isn't Grand Guignol. The chill it leaves is all about the way we view normality and family loyalty. Not only strange, sad and intelligent, it is heartbreaking too. Keep the sunnies strapped on - you might find yourself crying.

From the Times Archive: A 1977 review of the stage version of 'Metamorphosis'

Lastly in the character- building category, check out Mark Z.Danielewski, the David Lynch of the written word. His House of Leaves (Doubleday, £20/£18) has no linear plot and ultimately is completely irrational, but boy does it send a cold wind through your heart.

Littered with cross references, concrete poetry and diagrams, there's incredible eeriness here. Dive in, but don't castigate yourself if you can't read every footnote.

At 736 pages the Ryanair check-in clerk might make you dump the Danielewski. Dodge a humiliating appearance on Airline by brandishing a slimmer volume or two. Edgar Allan Poe should be in your carry-on somewhere, perhaps Annabel Lee and Other Poems (Greville, £7.50/£7.13), celebrating necrophilia. Poe is the short-story king, but for a rapid-read I'd opt for one of his imitators: W.W.Jacobs's The Monkey's Paw (OUP, £4.25/£4.04) written more than half a century later and with the same macabre tint on it. A slip of a story, it can be read in a security queue. The writing is graceless but the story is mesmerising.

From the Times Archive: A 1975 review of the American author Edgar Allan Poe

From the Times Archive: The obituary of W.W. Jacobs

If you find yourself wanting more of the same you can find its core conceit contemporised and expanded to novel length in Stephen King's novel Pet Sematary (Hodder, £7.99/£7.59). Thinking of other turn-of-the-century literature I was drawn to Bram Stoker's Dracula (Capuchin, £7.99/£7.59). No matter how well you think you know the story, the original still has the capacity to shock.

Stoker owed a huge debt to the Gothic movement. The reverberations started by Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe et al, two centuries ago, still echo through fiction today - but no one knows quite how to give the form freshness and relevance like Thomas Harris. A former crime reporter, his measured use of fact lends the horror a real credibility.

From the Times Archive: A 1971 study of 'Dracula' and vampires

Though Hannibal can be dispensed with, the rest of the Hannibal Lecter series deserves to be treated the way Lecter should: with extreme respect - even the much maligned Hannibal Rising (Arrow, £6.99/£6.64), which defrocks Harris as a genius literary writer. A master of narrative misdirection, his earlier novels are viewed among crime novelists as benchmarks in the form. Red Dragon (Arrow, £6.99/£6.64) leads the field here. Beautifully written, it's exemplary as a thriller too. If you choose just one chiller this summer make it this one.

Mo Hayder is a British crime writer. Her fifth novel, Ritual, in which DI Jack Cafferty returns, is out now.

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