The lighthouse at the en.., p.1
The Lighthouse at the End of the World, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Prologue
Part One On The Bridge
1 Three Card Monte
2 Big Mickey
3 Mary’s Boy Child
4 Embankment
5 Tooting Bec
6 Ceremony
7 The Bridge
Part Two London Unseen
8 The Serpentine
9 Old Water
10 Harry Gregg’s Sock
11 Message Centre
12 The Clip
13 Dead Drop
14 The Mannish Boys
15 The Beach of Lost Things
16 Derelict
17 Greater London
18 Post Office
19 Mr Primrose
20 London
21 “You Don’t Do Things by Halves, Do You?”
22 The Deeside Shuffle
23 The Good Old Days
24 Lamasery
25 Sprichst Du Deutsch?
Part Three Interdimensional Turf War Blues
26 Minkowski Invocation
27 The Horned One
28 Tesco Metro
29 Flapdoodle
30 The Crack in The World
31 The Door
32 O-Le-An-Der Gos-Wick
33 The City and The Company
34 Flimflams
35 Parlay
36 Intentional Vacuity
37 Something Different
38 Animal House
39 Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted.
40 A Valuable Asset
41 Escape
42 Goodbye
43 Working Men’s Club
44 Lost Things
45 The Miracle Club
46 St John’s Wood
47 Salvation Army
48 This is Oomph!
Part Four The Lighthouse at The End of The World
49 Performance Anxiety
50 The Narrowboat
51 World-King
52 Adiona
53 Fauks
54 Madame La Pilota
55 Trojan
56 Bar Fly
57 Leviathan
58 Beneath The Paving Stones…
59 Oyster-Adiona
60 Ruckage
61 Pour L’amour Et La Vaillance!
62 Gateway
63 Whirlwind
64 Blue Ice
65 Redux
66 Lucas
67 Across The Ice
68 The Lantern Room
69 The Thing You Never Wanted to Know
70 Yellie
71 The Lighthouse at The End of The World
72 You Have to Be Lost to Be Found
73 Tooting
74 Unit 23A
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise for
THE LIGHTHOUSE AT
THE END OF THE WORLD
“The Lighthouse at the End of the World is a charming portal-esque fantasy with gritty wit, taking its readers on a twisty adventure that is both mythic and mystic, at times violent, with dashes of whimsy, exploring familial trauma, wayfinding and learning to navigate the world, reclaiming control of a life that has always been dictated by others, finding courage, and discovering the power and strength of found families.”
AI JIANG, Hugo-nominated author of A Palace Near the Wind
“Inventive, immersive worldbuilding.”
CAITLIN ROZAKIS, bestselling author of Dreadful
“A quirky riot of a debut that will leave you in stitches. Suggars’s delightful voice brings to life Dickensian characters in a magical London. Stunning and startling in equal measure.”
T. L. HUCHU, Nommo award-winning author of The Library of the Dead
“Do you like steam-punk beetles? Old gods? And scamming tourists? You can find it all in a single hallucinogenic book. This debut has cemented Suggars as an author to watch out for.”
GREER STOTHERS, author of Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die
“The Lighthouse at the End of the World is gloriously unhinged in all the best ways, with Oyster McLellen as the kind of scrappy, street-smart protagonist you can’t help but root for, even as he cons his way across realities. If you’ve ever wanted China Miéville and Scott Lynch to get into a bar fight over a manuscript, this is the book that crawls out of the wreckage.”
HELEN MARSHALL, award-winning author of The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death
“The creativity and imagination on display is breathtaking. The language employed by the characters is unique and complex, while the story immerses you in murky microcosms that will leave you astounded.”
CHARLOTTE BOND, author of The Watcher in the Woods
“A vivid and boisterous portal fantasy with a bold, playful voice. I loved the inventive and daringly weird world, mixing dangerous London gangs with 17th century slang and pagan folklore with body horror that made me squirm—but never losing sight of the personal story at its core about found family and lost fathers. More, please!”
GV ANDERSON, World Fantasy award-winning author
“Fantastical other realities, great characters – a glorious world to dive into.”
MARIE O’REGAN, editor of In These Hallowed Halls, These Dreaming Spires, author of Celeste and The Last Ghost and Other Stories
“A collision of the razor-sharp, grounded and urban, with the hugely imaginative and fantastical. A fish out of water genre tale with flashes of Burroughs, Ballard and Barker. You’ll never look at a beetle the same way again…”
PAUL KANE, award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell and The Storm
THE
LIGHTHOUSE
AT THE END OF
THE WORLD
The Lighthouse at the End of the World
Print edition ISBN: 9781835412497
E-book edition ISBN: 9781835412503
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: April 2026
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© Philip A. Suggars 2026.
Philip A. Suggars asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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Designed and typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Richard Mason.
For whom I stopped my zig-zagging:
Red, Boo and Little Lou.
THE
LIGHTHOUSE
AT THE END OF
THE WORLD
by
PHILIP A. SUGGARS
TITAN BOOKS
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PROLOGUE
Two men sitting at the back of
Deb’s café in Camberwell, 2007
Is it done?”
“Of course. Separated out into three so it doesn’t go off prematurely. We’re not like the rank amateurs that you insist upon employing. It’s quite sweet really, your naïve reliance on intermediaries.”
“Whatever. You and I are taking a big chance here. What if he doesn’t find them? Or worse, what if he finds them but doesn’t use them?”
“‘To work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for.’”
“I hate it when you talk bollocks.”
“By which, we mean they’re glamoured, aren’t they. They’ll do the trick. It’s up to you to leave them close enough at hand to be found. What’s the matter? Getting cold feet.”
“No.”
“You sure? If you want to forfeit this go around, we could always just forgo—”
“No. For this to work, he has to find his own way. They always do.”
PART ONE
ON THE BRIDGE
THREE CARD MONTE
Oyster emerged from the burnt-air stink of Westminster Underground station and trudged up the steps, avoiding the gum and cigarette butts that might ruin his white Airmax 97s. As he crested the steps, a chill breeze blew around his ears and his fingertips tingled with nervous energy. Directly across the ro ad from the Tube’s exit stood Big Ben. No matter how many times he came here, he was always surprised by the reality and size of London’s most famous clock tower.
This part of the city always made him uneasy. It was possessed of an artificial sheen and a sort of theme park energy. Nothing like the bit of town he’d grown up in; the place where he had attended – at least some – schooling. He’d always assumed the sensation was caused by the fact that there were probably more feds around.
On this day, though, he pulled the collar of his puffer jacket up around his ears and squinted, his eyes watering from the cold. He’d already made out Broadsides, the crew’s rangy twist of muscle, lurking on the other side of the road. He was propped up against the bridge’s low wall, smoking. Oyster nodded at him. Broadsides fluttered an eyebrow, drew on his cigarette and played it cool. Oyster scanned the bridge for Baby Ed, their lookout, but he was nowhere to be seen.
He watched Deano, their inside man on the game, arrive. He was late as usual. There was an inevitability about the way he moved, Oyster thought, like an oil tanker or a freight train, coasting along the pavement and coming to a slow halt just far enough from the other members of the crew. He dropped his plastic palette to the ground and adjusted it with his feet till he had it just the way he wanted. Then came the shallow cardboard gaming table. Finally, with a hydraulic sigh, he settled onto the crate.
Oyster yelped as he was struck on the ear.
“Wake up, wanker!” yelled Baby Ed, as he ran past.
The teenager dodged across the road through the buses and taxis, taking up position where he could watch for feds. Unlike Oyster, Ed had no compunction about pulling bag snatches on old ladies or posting flaming shit through letterboxes. While Oyster had little enthusiasm for these sorts of jobs, he understood they were a necessary part of the crew’s business from time to time, but the more filthy or violent the task, the more it seemed to appeal to Baby Ed.
In his more generous moments, Oyster put this down to the fact that Ed had been doing this since the age of twelve, while Oyster was relatively late to crew life. But whatever the reason, there was no love lost between them. Less generously, he remembered being at school with kids like Ed. The ones that seemed to enjoy the kickings and the shamings, who revelled in the boredom and the battles. Some people were just shits. Oyster found himself thinking about his dad and shooed the thoughts away.
Deano, meanwhile, had pulled three playing cards out of his coat and placed them face up on the cardboard: a king of hearts, a four of diamonds and a queen of spades. King on the left, four on the right and queen of spades in the middle. The cards were old, with a waxy sheen to them. They curled on their backs where they lay.
“Game of chance is a sacred thing,” he announced. “Once you been challenged you’ve got to see it through. So, come on! Be part of something sacred! Come and watch the black queen. She’s going for a ride!”
In one fluid motion, he threw the queen face down onto the middle of the makeshift cardboard table. With his right hand he landed the four of diamonds to her left, scooping up the queen with his right hand before throwing down the king which had remained in his left. With a deliberate rhythm he continued this shuffle for two or three rounds, always ensuring one card remained in his hands and two lay on the table.
“Easy money, people. Easy money. Come on. Come on now. Follow the lady. Follow the queen of spades,” he chanted as he ran the shuffle.
After a fourth round he threw the final card face down onto the cardboard, turning his large palms up to the sky.
“Now, people, where is the little lady?” he said.
Deano flipped over the centre card with his index finger. The queen of spades rocked back and forth, staring up at him.
“And there she blows!” he said. “Come on, people. This is easy money. Just tell me where she’s gonna be.”
With the punters hooked, Deano would run a couple of straight shuffles. If no one had thrown down cash by the third hand, it was Oyster’s job to step in and lay down a fiver out of his float. The game was a typical outside man scam, in that once people saw Oyster betting, they assumed it was on the level and followed his lead.
Buses shuddered over the bridge, bringing a steady stream of tourists past the game. A young man wearing a baseball cap and a black windcheater watched Deano run his shuffle.
“Lay down some cash, my friend,” said Deano, looking up at him and smiling toothily, “and walk away with plenty more.”
The young man reached into his pocket and pulled out a fiver. Oyster could tell from the unfamiliar way he held it that he was a tourist; a child with Monopoly money. The kiddie folded the note over and placed it on the edge of the cardboard box. Deano pulled a clear plastic paperweight out of his pocket and placed it on top of the money.
“Let’s go. Queenie’s doing one,” he said, waving the two cards in his hand at the tourist so he could see the queen of spades. Oyster hung back, playing the casual bystander. He heard the almost inaudible double click of cards hitting each other as Deano surreptitiously dealt the king over the back of the queen. This throw, a hype, was the key to the scam.
It meant that, even though the rhythm and motion of the shuffle looked exactly the same as a straight deal, the card Deano’s mark was following around the table wasn’t the queen of spades at all.
As the shuffle progressed, a young couple in matching T-shirts arrived, followed by a man in a buttoned-up black shirt. Three tourists with actual cameras riding on their chests were the last to be hooked in. Oyster clocked each of them, assessing their cash potential.
“Here we go! Where is she, my man?” said Deano.
The kid bit his bottom lip and squinted at the board. He tapped the centre card. Deano flipped it over to reveal the king.
“She’s a sneaky one that queen of spades,” he said, shoving the cash into his coat pocket.
The kid looked bemused.
“Listen,” said Deano scratching his chin. “You look like a nice guy. So let me give you the chance to win your money back. Why don’t we say double or quits?”
The kid bit his lip again. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded wad of money secured with a metal clip. Silently, he put a tenner down on the table. Again, Deano placed it under the paperweight and shuffled the cards. Again, the kid’s face twisted in disappointment as Deano threw a perfect hype and collected his winnings.
“Guess you just need to warm up a little more, cuz,” said Deano, stowing the money in his pocket and opening his hands.
“One more go?”
Oyster could see the kid was cooling, so he stepped forward.
“Count me in, mate,” said Oyster, laying down a twenty. “Let’s go.”
“A twenty from boydem with the big balls here,” said Deano, running a regular toss now Oyster was in play.
“Where is that lady?” said Deano at the end of the shuffle.
Oyster knocked at the rightmost card. Deano flipped it over and gave a pantomime “Oh!” as he revealed the queen of spades. He grimaced and counted out four tens to Oyster.
Seeing Oyster win hooked the mark in for twenty on the next round. By the time they’d finished with him he stumbled away, dazed and a hundred quid lighter.
Oyster watched their victim go. He ran his hand over the stubble on his head. The guy looked like he’d been hypnotised. And in a way he had. The part of Oyster that felt bad for him was answered by the part that told him everyone was fair game. Everything was a con, one way or another. Everyone got fooled, abandoned, chewed up, or shat out. What he was doing wasn’t any different than what the coked-up-brace-wearing ding-dongs that ran the square mile did. And those guys were fucking heroes. Captains of Industry. The only difference between them was their patter.
For the rest of the day, Oyster watched as Deano leaned into his work. With a mark hooked, he would regulate the rhythm of wins carefully, leavening the fair hands with the hype throws. If it looked like their mark was going to spring before they could soak him, or if he started to get uppity, Oyster stepped in to keep them in the game. As a general rule, Deano was so fluid in his deals and so generous with his smiles that Broadsides hardly ever had to get involved.
As evening arrived, they’d had a good run and were almost three grand up. The tips of Deano’s fingers were nicked from running the cards all day, and when he sat up Oyster heard the man’s back crackle from being bent over the deck. The sun was setting and the traffic on the bridge cast long shadows onto the punters as they trudged along the pavement.
