Come In and Shut the Door

A Telegraph ‘Best Crime and Thrillers of 2025’ selection

‘One of Britain’s most visionary writers’, David Peace 
‘That uniquely valuable writer and independent film-maker Chris Petit’, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
‘A tale for our feverish times … It’s fascinating to wander round Petit’s baroque imagination’ The Times 
‘A vertiginous, compulsively readable séance of a book.’ James Riley, 3:AM Magazine
‘One of the most fascinating and forensic voices within British counter-culture.’ The Quietus
‘A nightmarish view of the human capacity for destruction on both the personal and political level, rendered with horrible conviction’, Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph
‘Chris Petit weaves a complex web of contradiction and hidden truths, adhering to the principle that the most ‘normal’-seeming lives can conceal sinister reality … Provocative and multifaceted, here Petit challenges complacency, forcing the reader to confront uncomfortable truths.’ Buzz Magazine 
‘This provocative patchwork of a novel will stay with you as it excoriates complacency’, Crime Time 
‘Chris Petit is a master of the dark thriller arts. Come In and Shut the Door pushes open a clandestine entrance into another dimension, a Visconti-like world beyond the edge of night.’ Nicholas Shakespeare

THE FINAL DAYS OF ADOLF HITLER ARE SHROUDED IN MYSTERY. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THAT BERLIN BUNKER? AND WHAT HAPPENEND NEXT?

When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment. He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects.

Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.

With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.

Author Biography

Chris Petit has written a trio of acclaimed “beyond black” political thrillers covering a serial killer operating in sectarian Northern Ireland (The Psalm Killer); dirty money in World War II (The Human Pool); and terror, arms trading and the bombing of a civilian aircraft (The Passenger); as well as The Butchers of Berlin which also features the characters Schlegel and Morgen. Come in and Shut the Door is his latest novel. He is an internationally renowned filmmaker.