SILENT NIGHTS, edited by Martin Edwards

I stumbled across this at the library just before the holidays, and it was a natural. Perfect reading material for the break!

And boy, was it ever. This is another superior collection from British Library Crime Classics, so you can't go wrong. Author/scholar Edwards is a great anthologist and digs up all sorts of good and obscure stories for his collections.

There are some that are familiar, like Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," a natural for Christmas mystery anthologies, Chesterton's "The Flying Stars," and Sayers' "The Necklace of Pearls," all of which I skipped. I'd read them all before...why bother?

The rest, however, are a candy box. Ralph Plummer is an unknown author, but his "Parlour Tricks" is an unjustly overlooked and forgotten story for sheer cleverness. Raymund Allen's "A Happy Solution" was my least favorite of the book, in that it relies on a knowledge of chess, a game at which I am a hopeless muddle. (Seriously, I stink at chess. I gave up trying years ago.) "Stuffing," by Edgar Wallace, is an amusing twist-of-fate story that I enjoyed.

H. C. Bailey's Reggie Fortune stars in "The Unknown Murderer," and while it's not the best Fortune story I've read, it's still damn good as Fortune delves into a series of murders that appear to be distantly related to what we now call Munchhausen-by-proxy syndrome. "The Absconding Treasurer," by J. Jefferson Farjeon, is a fun thriller with a murderer being tracked down in the snow.

Margery Allingham's "The Case is Altered" was my first experience of Albert Campion, and I found it acceptable as the hero detective stumbles into a case of blackmail and espionage at a holiday house party. "Waxworks," by Ethel Lina White, mixes damsel-in-distress tropes with a streak of feminism. "Cambric Tea" by Marjorie Bowen builds as a conte cruel but has a happy ending, and "The Chinese Apple" by Joseph Shearing (actually by the same author, Bowen and Shearing were both pen names of the prolific Gabrielle Long) is a fun thriller about a woman meeting a relative for the first time and piecing together a recent murder.

"A Problem in White," by Nicholas Blake, is a fun mystery set on a train, with an elaborate solution at the back of the book. Edmund Crispin's "The Name on the Window" is an entertaining short starring his detective Gervase Fen, and Leo Bruce's "Beef for Christmas," a forgotten rarity, rounds out the collection.

This is great reading for the holiday season, and I recommend it unreservedly. I'll have a hard time keeping up with Edwards' collections; every so often I hear of another, and thank goodness the local library system is keeping up!

DOWN BY THE OLD BLOODSTREAM, "edited" by Alfred Hitchcock

In the 1960s and '70s, Alfred Hitchcock's name was attached to countless anthologies. I doubt he truly edited them; he worked hand-in-glove with former radio writer Robert Arthur who I suspect is probably responsible. Arthur also wrote a good number of the "Three Investigators" boys' series that featured Hitch as a sort of "M" to a trio of teen sleuths.

Down by the Old Bloodstream, published in 1971, is sadly unremarkable as an anthology. There's no real luminaries among the authors, with two exceptions....one a "Hal Ellison", likely our old friend Harlan, but his story "The Good Thief" is a bore. The other is TV cop Jack Webb, and his story, "A Miracle is Arranged," is slightly better, a tale of attempted insurance fraud undone by a Twilight Zone-ish twist of fate.

Some of them write checks they can't cash. "Kurdistan Payload," for instance, sounds like a tale of international intrigue, but instead it's a noir-ish tale involving a moving company and a valuable Oriental rug. "The Monster Brain" sounds like a pulp horror tale, but the title refers to a computer that's only peripherally involved. In fact, that story is part of the one thing that makes this collection interesting...there are three stories in sequence, "The Still Small Voice," "Haunted Hill," and "The Monster Brain," that function as what I can best term "Hillbilly Noir." All three involve crime and conniving in a backwoods setting, with rustic characters. "The Monster Brain" is an exception as it's narrated by an insurance investigator, but the setting and the remainder of the characters put it in that mini-genre I just invented. It's an interesting view of a time when the world was less connected and it wasn't unusual to drive from a major city for less than a day and be in an area with no telephones or very little electricity.

Aside from that, not much to recommend it, really. Another story, "A Fair Warning to Mystery Writers," is amusing in its depiction of an author who rents a quiet place to do some writing but is constantly hassled by neighbors. Otherwise, this is forgettable stuff.

RESORTING TO MURDER, edited by Martin Edwards

This is another excellent anthology by Edwards, who's turning out to be one of the great powerhouses of traditional British mystery scholarship; he's edited a number of anthologies and written a history of them.

The running theme here is mysteries taking place on vacation, and it's quite a mixture of material. It kicks off with an old warhorse, "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" by Arthur Conan Doyle, which takes place while Sherlock Holmes is on vacation in Cornwall. The next story, "A Schoolmaster Abroad" by E. W. Hornung, is not one of that author's better works, and doesn't linger long in the memory.

Arnold Bennett's "Murder!" is an OK story, kind of a macabre comedy where we witness a murder being committed, then watch a pompous police officer botch the investigation. "The Murder on the Golf Links" by M. McDonnell Bodkin showcases his now-forgotten sleuth Paul Beck, in a murder on a golf course; not great, but a serviceable story of its time. The next tale, "The Stone Finger" by G. K. Chesterton, is subpar; it's not a Father Brown story, and the method used to hide the body is so utterly daft I wanted to hunt down Chesterton's grave to spit on it.

"The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser" by Basil Thomson is a journalistic recycling of the old "so long at the fair" urban legend. R. Austin Freeman gives us his medical sleuth Dr. Thorndike in "A Mystery of the Sand Hills," which has an unsatisfying plot but at the same time is a good (and well-written) look at Thorndike's deductive reasoning.

Then we get to the really good stuff. H. C. Bailey's Reggie Fortune turns up in "The Hazel Ice", investigating a murder in the Alps. It's a cracking good story, and I'm quickly becoming a fan of Bailey and Fortune. Then we have Anthony Berkeley's rarely-reprinted story "Razor Edge," which has sleuth Roger Sheringham looking into a suspicious drowning by the seaside. Then we have Leo Bruce's Sgt. Beef in the short-short "Holiday Task", looking into a strange death along the cliffs in Normandy (with a very clever twist at the end!).

A now-forgotten author, Helen Simpson had two works filmed by Hitchcock (MURDER! and UNDER CAPRICORN), and died young. She is represented in this collection by her rare story "A Posteriori," a comic tale of a tourist in France who becomes reluctantly embroiled in espionage, and has a hilariously ribald twist at the end that I don't dare spoil. "Where is Mr. Manetot?" by Phyllis Bentley is another rarity, written for an anthology of missing-persons stories. This one's about an academic who goes on an unexpected holiday and wanders into the midst of a heinous plot.

The next author, Gerald Findler, is an enigma; nothing is known of him, and there's only a couple of brief stories and a pamphlet credited to him. But "The House of Screams" packs a whallop, a haunted-house story which conceals an ingenious murder. And the anthology wraps up with Michael Gilbert's "Cousin Once Removed," a tale of murder with an ironic twist.

Despite a sluggish start, and some stuff you've seen before, this is still a superior anthology and a great way to sample some of the golden age's best mystery writers. Check it out!

TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES, edited by Sarah Weinman

I found out about this anthology from the excellent Classic Mysteries podcast, and and glad I did. This is good stuff.

"Domestic suspense" is a subgenre of mystery/thriller fiction that focuses on family relationships, either spousal, parental or a mix, and is normally regarded as the purview of women writers. I've some across scornful remarks that it was the "kitchen sink" school, but as Edna Buchanan once wrote, the person most likely to murder you is sitting across the breakfast table, and she knows her business.

My favorites from the collection? There's Patricia Highsmith's early story "The Heroine," about an unstable woman who's hired as a governess for a well-to-do family, with tragic results. I mean, c'mon, it's Highsmith, of course it's exceptional.

Another good one is "Louisa, Please Come Home" by Shirley Jackson, an incredible tale of a girl who runs away from her wealthy family, covers her tracks, and starts a new life in another city. The exact reasons for her leaving are nebulous, and she's on the verge of forming a new family, when someone from her past shows up and wants to take her home. It's a great tale, full of psychological depth and devastating irony.

Barbara Callahan's "Lavender Lady" is a story of a singer who's growing tired of her most requested song, which her fans don't realize is a tale of the loss of a beloved childhood friend, a nanny who liked to wear lavender. But as the story progresses you realize the singer has filtered the tale through a very sentimental lens, and there's a lot of darkness lurking.

"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" by Helen Nielsen is a great noir story of a woman, married to a prominent businessman, who is being harassed by a former lover, a pianist. She hatches a scheme to be free of him once and for all, but it takes an unexpected twist.

Some of the others are pretty good but didn't leap out at me as much. Nedra Tyre's "A Nice Place to Stay" is a tale of a woman who prefers life in prison to a hardscrabble, chancy life on the outside. "Sugar and Spice" is a nice tale from Vera Caspary, but I was more enthused by finding out more about Caspary's feminist leanings, which means I have to re-watch "Laura" and view it through a feminist lens instead of the usual gay-rights lens I employ. "The Purple Shroud" by Joyce Harrington is a good psychological tale of a long-suffering wife who's finally had enough. Miriam Allen Deford's "Mortmain" is a ferociously nasty tale of a nurse who plans to rob her dying patient after poisoning him, and of the patient who has his own ideas.

Of the others...well, they're good, but some seemed a little out of place. Dorothy B. Hughes's "Everybody Needs a Mink" hardly seems like it belongs here, as there's no real crime or suspense going on. "The Stranger in the Car" by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding is a rather run-of-the-mill murder story, at least to my eye, as is "The Splintered Monday" by Charlotte Armstrong. "Lost Generation" by Dorothy Salisbury Davis is hideously nasty, and not as much about domestic relations as it is about racism and prejudice in small towns. "The People Across the Canyon" is memorable and good, but it has a supernatural twist at the end and comes across as a lost episode of "The Twilight Zone" than something from a mystery anthology. The collection closes with "A Case of Maximum Need" by Celia Fremlin, a nasty psycho-thriller that is quite good but doesn't quite strike me as domestic.

Even with a few stories that seemed like they didn't belong, I still had a fabulous time with this collection, and I've added quite a few of the authors' works to my shopping list. (I picked up a lovely vintage Armstrong title, "Murder's Nest", a couple of weeks ago during a used-book expedition.) I know there's a move lately for folks to read less works by white male authors, so this at least will have you reading more female authors! (I don't pay much attention to such campaigns myself; I read what interests me and the author's sex or ethnicity doesn't come much into it, although I do find I read a lot by female authors anyway.)

So seek this one out, folks, it's a great collection, even if there's a few that seem off, and like any good anthology, it will clue you in to other authors to seek out. Get it and have a blast.

TALES FROM A GAS-LIT GRAVEYARD, edited by Hugh Lamb

Hugh Lamb was a great anthologist and literary historian, and he dug up quite a few previously unknown stories that have now become standards in anthologies and are studied by scholars and students. His many anthologies of Victorian ghost stories are almost required reading among fans of supernatural fiction.

So, let's run through the contents...

"The Haunted Station" is a great story of a haunted hut in the Australian outback, written by Hume Nisbet. It's a gloriously evocative and eerie tale, where the scenery of the outback is as menacing and ghostly as the hauntings themselves. Although the haunting is fairly standard, it's well-written enough to be worth reading on its own.

"The Hour and the Man" is a conte cruel by Robert Barr, reminiscent of "The Torture by Hope" by Villiers de L'Isle Adam. "Nut Bush Farm" by Mrs. Riddell is an OK haunted-house story, centering on a theft and unsolved disappearance. J. H. Pearce's "The Man Who Coined His Blood into Gold" is an interesting folk tale/dark fantasy/adult fairy tale that is unusual for the period; unfortunately, its avant-garde nature probably cost Pearce any fame. Not much is known of him today and his work remains obscure.

Next up is two short-shorts by Lady Dilke, who was involved in a scandal that rocked the Victorian age, and of course is almost forgotten now. "The Shrine of Death" and "The Black Veil" are very Gothic, and seem almost old-fashioned compared to the other stories here. Ambrose Bierce's "The Ways of Ghosts" is a collection of brief essays about ghostly phenomena, in his typical style, always dry and mordantly witty.

"The Fever Queen" by K. and H. Prichard is more of dark irony than ghosts; the same with W. C. Morrow's "The Permanent Stiletto." The former is of an artist who vanishes after his greatest work is a flop...but later it's acclaimed as a masterpiece. The latter is of a man seeking treatment after a murder attempt...and of the fear that leads to his eventual fate.

Richard Marsh's "The Houseboat" is a straightforward tale of a haunted craft and an investigation that leads to its resolution. It's good fun, vividly told. "Dame Inowslad" by R. Murray Gilchrist, one of the Decadents, is a good cruel tale of supernatural vengeance...or is it otherworldly fulfillment? It's a masterful work, and Lamb was responsible for Gilchrist being revived and studied again.

Two fictionalized Spanish legends, "The Mountain of Spirits" and "The Golden Bracelet," are by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and are a pleasant dash of dark folkloric fantasy. "The Tyburn Ghost" by The Countess of Munster is a very nicely grisly short piece that prefigures some of Elliott O'Donnell's "true" ghost stories.

"Remorseless Vengeance" by Guy Boothby is a cruel little tale from another specialist in Victorian Australia. And the volume is ended with two tales from Bernard Capes. First is "The Green Bottle" which is a pleasantly vivid story of a soul trapped in a bottle. And finally is the now anthologized-almost-to-death "An Eddy on the Floor," which is hardly worth going into as everyone's read it.

There really isn't a bad story in the bunch; every one is worth reading in one way or another. I really liked "The Haunted Station", "The Houseboat," "Dame Inowslad," and "The Tyburn Ghost," and I will keep this handy to refer to them from time to time. This is still in print, both in physical editions and as an ebook. Go get it now.

Tales of the Shadowmen: The Modern Babylon

This is another case of "Great cover!"

The first in a series of anthologies from the good folks of Black Coat Press, these are different because they feature primarily characters from French pulp fiction, mingling with some other creations.  For instance, the cover depicts a confrontation between Feuillade's Judex and Mary Shelley's Creature.

The stories are not merely "new adventures" of popular characters, but crossovers.  Unfortunately, there's a few stories in here that function only as opportunities for characters to meet; however, at their best, the stories have a narrative that brings them together organically.

The cover illustrates "The Mask of the Monster" by Matthew Baugh, a decent story about the Creature surviving into early 20th-century France (and it's not bad for being his first work of fiction).  Bill Cunningham's "Cadavre Exquis" suffers not only from trying to cram too much into a short story, but also from a bleak outlook as the heroic Fascinax's efforts turn out to be futile.  And veteran TV writer, producer, and novelist Terrance Dicks of Dr. Who fame, gives one of the most unsatisfactory stories in the bunch, "When Lemmy Met Jules", which basically is only a meeting between Lemmy Caution and Jules Maigret, with minimal plot.  Yawn.

Up next was Winn Scott Eckert's "The Vanishing Devil," which featured Doc Ardan, Jules Maigret, and Sherlock Holmes, and was pleasant enough but not overly memorable.  Viviane Etrivert's "The Three Jewish Horsemen" is a delightful romp with Arsene Lupin and the Phantom of the Opera.  And I really liked G. L. Gick's "The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange," largely because it's being serialized and can afford to take its time.  It had good atmosphere and was more focused on story rather than throwing together as many characters as possible...which is a problem with Rick Lai's story "The Last Vendetta," which I felt was simply overpopulated with various characters and the dialogue existed mainly so people could drop pop-culture references.

Belgian author Alain le Bussy contributed the brief but very fun "The Sainte-Genevieve Caper" that has a meeting between Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes (who crossed swords several times in Maurice Leblanc's original Lupin novels).  Jean-Marc and Randy L'Officier (who edited this collection, by the way) contribute the amusingly Lovecraftian "Journey to the Centre of Chaos."  "Lacunal Visions" by Samuel T. Payne is an adventure of Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, against a villain who seems to be a distant relative of Dr. Who.  And Dupin shows up again in John Peel's "The Kind-Hearted Torturer," only this time having him connect with the Count of Monte Cristo.

"Penumbra," by Chris Roberson, was a lot of fun for me to read, as it not only crosses Louis Feuillade's two creations, Judex and Les Vampires, but also throws in Kent Allard, aka "The Shadow" of pulp classics, for good measure.  "The Paris-Ganymede Clock" was an interesting bit of steampunk from veteran sci-fi scribe Robert Sheckley.  And the collection is rounded up by Brian Stableford's mini-epic "The Titan Unwrecked; or Futility Revisited," which mixes fictional characters with real-life writers and millionaires on a luxury ship cruising across the Atlantic.

Is it worth reading?  Oh hell yeah.  Despite a few missteps, it's still a fun way of introducing yourself to some lesser-known characters, and there's fun and adventure to spare.  The best pieces are actual STORIES, not merely literary contrivances, and for savvy readers, there's often a smile or a chuckle to be had.

This is the first in a series from Black Coat, and while there's room for improvement, the level of quality is still very high.  Not quite required reading, but damn close.

Holiday Cheer: CHILLERS FOR CHRISTMAS

Last year I read Dalby's GHOSTS FOR CHRISTMAS, so this year it's the follow-up, CHILLERS FOR CHRISTMAS. And I enjoyed this more than the first. GHOSTS had some great stories, but sometimes wandered too far into the touching/heartwarming/twee zone. CHILLERS, though, isn't as constrained and can go farther afield from strictly ghosts...although they're here, in abundance.

It's replete with supernatural terrors, of course, but there's also some more generalized supernatural terrors, as well as some plain thrillers and works of cruelty. And a couple of humorous stories to leaven it all.

So, to do the usual rundown...

"The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" by Rudyard Kipling. A British soldier in India finds himself stranded, in the Christmas season, in an inescapable village, termed "the Village of the Dead." Apparently once there, always there, until the narrator seeks to find an escape. No supernatural terrors here, just a harrowing and grotesque situation.

"Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk" by Frank Cowper. Originally published in Blackwood's, this is one of their patented "predicament" tales in which a narrator finds themselves in a dangerous situation. (This was lampooned by Poe in "The Scythe of Time" and lived on in Reader's Digest as "Drama in Real Life.") The narrator, visiting a shore village at Christmastime, goes duck-hunting in the marshes and ends up stranded aboard a derelict ship as the tide rises and darkness falls. It's relentlessly atmospheric on those counts alone, but when eerie sounds start to replicate what seems to be a long-ago murder, it becomes a chilling classic. This tale is often anthologized, and is an effective little gem.

"The Phantom Riders" by Ernest Suffling, is a fun gothick tale of ghosts repeating a gruesome murder, and its aftermath. Amelia B. Edwards' "The Guard-Ship at the Aire" is another Predicament tale, this time of a man who is nearly killed by a rising tide while crossing a river delta. It's not just chance but human malice that got him on the wrong track, as is revealed in the tale, making this nastier than usual.

The authorship of "Horror: A True Tale" is debated, but it's a nasty tale of a girl who goes to her bedroom after a Christmas party, only to find herself the hostage of an escaped homicidal maniac. It's amusing, but the prose is undeniably purple and overwrought, making it rather unintentionally funny. "A Pipe of Mystery" by G. A. Henty tells of soldiers in India who do a good turn for a local mystic, and then receive psychic visions that save their bacon in the future. This isn't very Christmassy, but ekes through on a technicality: it's framed by a story of an aged man telling his young relatives a tale at a holiday party.

"On the Down Line" by George Manville Fenn is interesting, a Christmas railroad suspense story, with a possible ghost on a train. "An Exciting Christmas Eve" by A. Conan Doyle is a darkly humorous tale of a pompous expert in explosives who is kidnapped and made to lecture on bombs to a collection of anarchists.

Guy Boothby's "Remorseless Vengeance" is a nautical tale of spectral revenge, a bit different for its South Seas setting (Boothby was Australian). "The Vanishing House" by Bernard Capes is a minor classic, coming across almost as a folktale. A group of wandering musicians on Christmas Eve find themselves at a large house where a party seems to be taking place...but is it what it seems to be?

Dick Donovan's "The White Raven" is an odd mixture of Victorian piety and sentimentality with supernatural terrors. In fact, the supernatural elements of the story (a room haunted by a white raven that's an omen of disaster for anyone who sees it) is more of a plot device that allows Donovan to praise the narrator's idealized selflessness.

"The Strange Story of Northavon Priory" by F. Frankfort Moore (Bram Stoker's brother-in-law) is an OK tale of a house haunted by spirits of its diabolic past. "The Black Cat" by W. J. Wintle is a typical tale of the "person plagued by a spectral animal for no discernible reason" genre, although a fairly well-done example.

John Collier's "Back for Christmas" is a great sample of that author's talent for black comedy. An academic murders his hated wife and buries her in the basement just before a lecture tour abroad...only to be undone by a wry twist at the end. "A Christmas Story" by Sarban was my least favorite of the volume, a difficult-to-read tale that seemed to involve cannibalism, and maybe Yeti, but never really seems to go anywhere.

L. P. Hartley's "The Waits" explores the dark side of the holiday, as carolers turn out to be messengers from beyond, and they won't go until they get what they came for. And it ain't figgy pudding. Shamus Frazer's "Florinda" is another familiar formula, of a child's imaginary friend who may not be so imaginary, but it's got good atmosphere and a harrowing climax.

R. Chetwynd-Hayes' "The Hanging Tree" was a fairly muddled and unsatisfactory tale of a ghost that seeks to have a human body...maybe...and a woman who may be trying to help, or may only be a homicidal maniac. "The Grotto" by Alexander Welch is a good little tale of a weary department-store Santa who's visited by a child's ghost...but it avoids too much cutesiness with some genuine fear and a chilling end.

"Just Before Dawn" by Eugene Johnson is all about supernatural justice, as a down-and-out derelict reflects on the man who betrayed him and got away with it. "Buggane" by Peter Tremayne has some good folklore from the Isle of Man and some fairly harrowing ghosts seeking revenge.

"The Uninvited" by John Glasby is really a glorified EC Comics tale of a murderess being chased through her house by the reanimated corpses of her victims. A. J. Merak's "A Present for Christmas" (actually, Merak is Glasby) is much better, telling about a nasty spirit seeking to give a backhanded present, and a man's futile efforts to prevent the worst from happening.

Simon MacCulloch's "The Deliverer" has supernatural horrors as a country parson turns to darker practices. Roger Johnson's "The Night Before Christmas" is another tried-and-true genre, the repeated dream that is a sign of a terrifying fate, but again, it's a good example of that genre. And it was specially written for the collection.

Another exclusive tale, "On Wings of Song" by David G. Rowlands, tells of an amateur production of "Dracula" that leads to what appears to be attacks by an actual vampire. And ending the collection is a wonderful short chiller, "The Santa," by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, that explores the darker side of St. Nick.

Aside from a few clinkers, this was a superior collection, well-suited for fireside reading as cold winds blew outside. Get a copy and put it on your shelf for the next holiday season, folks. It's well worth it.

On a Raven's Wing

One of several anthologies that's out this year in honor of the Poe bicentennial, this is from the Mystery Writers of America, and is edited by Stuart Kaminsky. Obviously, the focus is on mystery, and sometimes it's quite imaginative.

Each story wraps itself around Poe in some way or another...either about Poe in some way, or a variation on one of his stories, or simply borrowing heavily from Poe's content and putting an original spin on it.

So for the usual rundown...

"Israfel" by Doug Allyn gives us a Poe-themed rock group, with a lead guitarist who's quickly burning out, and a narrator who's not about to let things go down the tubes. It has a nifty ending that packs a punch.

Michael A. Black's "The Golden Bug" is an interesting cross-pollination of Poe's "The Gold Bug" with Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS, set on a Pacific island during WWII. Maybe not the greatest story, but a well-done concept.

Jon L. Breen's "William Allan Wilson" is interesting; a tale of a Poe bicentennial collection, with a cipher embedded in a story that's a clue to a real murder (that is, real in the context of the story). Rather beguiling, but in the end rather unmemorable.

"The Tell-Tale Purr" by Mary Higgins Clark is more humor than anything else, a tale of an attempted murder that not only goes wrong, but ends up turning situations around in the most bizarre way. I have to say, it functions better as a short story than some other shorts that MHC has written; she's really improved her grasp of the form.

"Nevermore" by Thomas H. Cook gives us a tale of family secrets unburied, as a dying man seeks to communicate a guilty secret to his estranged adult son, with struggles between loyalty and anger, faith and reason, running throughout.

"Emily's Time" by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, is at first unsatisfying, but after a second read, it's a few steps short of being brilliant. It's great from a literary standpoint, as well as a mystery standpoint, and (I hate to say it) almost too good for this collection, where the emphasis is on solid genre work. A variation on Poe's "The Black Cat," it deals with loneliness and guilt, but with wonderfully rendered emotions and settings.

Brendan DuBois's "The Cask of Castle Island" isn't bad, basically a retelling of "The Cask of Amontillado" in modern-day Boston, although it could be faulted for being a bit too faithful to its source. "Bells" by James W. Hall expounds on the poem with a tale of a man plotting against his wife with the titular objects, only to have his plan unravel. Not bad, not great.

"In My Ancestor's Image" is part of Jeremiah Healey's Rory Calhoun series. Calhoun, a private eye, is hired to locate a stolen Edgar award by a putative descendant of Poe. Not bad, if a bit self-referential about the Mystery Writers of America.

"The Poe Collector" by the late Edward D. Hoch is great fun, a delicious tale of con and detection. "A Nomad of the Night" by Rupert Holmes (as in Broadway's "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "Curtains," yes, that Rupert Holmes) effectively evokes the atmosphere of low-budget filmmaking in the 60s. And I love that title.

My favorite story of the bunch was editor Stuart Kaminsky's contribution, "Rattle, Rattle, Rattle," a full-blown gothic horror tale that expands on Poe's "Berenice." Very good fun.

Paul Levine's "Development Hell" is something I've seen before, a comedy about Hollywood and deals with the devil. Didn't thrill me much. Peter Lovesey's "The Deadliest Tale of All" isn't much of a mystery, but a decent dissection of Poe's character and a posthumous kick in the teeth to Rufus Griswold.

John Lutz's "Poe, Poe, Poe" was my least favorite; it actually read like a transcribed one-act play by a first-time playwright. It's overpopulated with characters who all have overly cute variations on names of Poe characters, all gathered in a tavern. Not worth it.

"The Tell-Tale Pacemaker" by P. J. Parrish, is another modernized retelling, in this case "The Tell-Tale Heart" transported to a modern retirement community.

"Seeing the Moon" by S. J. Rozan is my second-favorite of the book. It's got appealing and well-etched characters (Asian-American art experts) and a great tale of con and counter-con, as victims of an art scam seek to recoup their losses with a return scam, involving a Poe artifact. It makes me want to seek out more of Rozan's work.

Daniel Stashower's "Challenger" was a nostalgic variation on "Annabel Lee," only with ugly real-world twists. Another bit of nostalgia, "Poe, Jo, and I" by Don Winslow, is well-written enough but simply not a mystery. It's simply a narrator's tribute to a teacher Who Really Cared and Connected With Him and all that.

Finally, Angela Zeman's "Rue Morgue Noir" is an amusing fantasia on what it would be like for Poe if he were trying to make it as a writer today. It's not pretty.

Overall, even though some stories weren't anything great, the stories in this collection are mostly solid genre work, and worth a look. It's a good sampling of some of the talent in the mystery world today. Check it out if you like a good mystery short story.

More coming up...

Montague Summers' THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS, Part 2

Well, I finally, finally finished Summers' monumental anthology. And a problem I noted in the first part, how Rosa Mulholland's "Not to be Taken at Bed-Time" was out of place in the ghost stories section, has now been explained. It seems there's been some sort of editorial error, although I'm not sure if it's Summers' fault or some later hack's work. Because in the second part, "Diabolism, Witchcraft, and Evil Lore," there's a story that's supposed to demonstrate "Witchcraft," but the story is Amelia Edwards' "My Brother's Ghost Story," a nice enough tale, but it has nothing to do with witchcraft. It looks like, somehow, the two stories were switched. It's actually a rather glaring error, and I'd like to know at whose feet I should be laying the blame.

Anyway, like the first part, I skipped a few stories. Here's the list of the ones I skipped:

"Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity," by Richard Barham, is being saved for later, when I review some sections from THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS.
"Carmilla," by J. Sheridan le Fanu, is also being saved for later; I want to review this landmark work on its own, and take my time with it.
"The Story of Konnor Old House" by Kate and Hesketh Prichard is being saved for when I review all their Flaxman Low stories at once.

So, for the ones I did read...

"The Spirit of Stonehenge" by Jasper John. I expected something lurid and horrific, and was a little let down. It's basically a tale of an archaeologist who falls under the spell of the "elementals" of Stonehenge, and eventually dies there. There's more hinted at than actually happening, which is fairly frustrating.

The next story is also by Jasper John, "The Seeker of Souls." This is an oddly abbreviated tale that feels as if it could have been much longer, had J.J. put some effort into it. As it is, it's a not-bad tale of a castle in Ireland under a curse, and of a couple of bloody deaths. The most interesting thing is that it starts off almost mid-story, with the narrator awaiting the hour when some evil thing will walk the halls of the castle. Sounds a lot more shuddersome than it is; it could have been better.

Next up was a tale by Roger Pater, who had a story in the first half. "The Astrologer's Legacy" is told all in flashback, with little actually happening in the "present" of the story, but it's still interesting. Part of Pater's cycle of tales in which a Catholic priest encounters supernatural doings, it has the hero at a lavish dinner party and inspecting an odd piece of silver. It turns out to have an unhealthy fascination for one of the party, and turns out to have a past associated with a secret cult of Satanists. Despite the rather distant nature of the tale, it's still halfway interesting.

Next was J. Sheridan le Fanu's "Sir Dominick's Bargain," a sardonic tale of an impoverished Irish noble who strikes a deal with the devil for limitless riches. This is a popular tale that's been anthologized often, and dramatized a few times for radio, but it's jolly good fun, with a satisfying final twist and enough gruesomeness to keep it from seeming too proper and twee. Of course, it's le Fanu, how can you go wrong?

Another story of an evil bargain, "The Bargain of Rupert Orange" by Vincent O'Sullivan, is adequate, I'd have to say. (Nothing I've read of O'Sullivan measures up to "When I was Dead," which makes me wonder.) This is another tale of an impoverished young man who makes a deal...but is it the devil? Is it really a deal? It's all so oblique...you can see the thematic treatment of the deal-with-the-devil, but there's precious little brimstone to be sniffed here. In fact, from my reading of it, what goes on could be explained by mere chance, the fleeting nature of fame, and self-destructive personalities. All well and good in their place, but this ain't the place.

"The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat (an excerpt from his novel THE PHANTOM SHIP) does duty as the collection's example of lycanthropy. It's actually quite enjoyable. A nobleman, on the run with three children, ends up falling in love with a mysterious woman and marrying her. Of course, she frightens the children so, and finally they figure out that she's a werewolf. But there's blood to be shed before it's all over, and (surprisingly) a curse that needs to be played out before it's all over. Actually, not a bad story at all, and dripping with gothic atmosphere.

And next up is more Roger Pater! "A Porta Inferi" is a tale of possession. It pretty much drops the ball when dealing with how the possession occurred or why, BUT...its depiction of a man possessed is compelling. I don't believe in such things, but if they did happen, Pater's story would be a great diagnostic tool. (Makes me wonder if that wasn't the intent.) There's a collection of Pater's Catholic-themed stories out there; I may have to find one, because he's turning out to be an interesting voice in the field of supernatural fiction.

Richard Barham's "Jerry Jarvis' Wig" tells how a cloddish working-class man commits a horrible crime under the influence of a castoff wig. Yes, a wig. Ghost stories are inherently absurd, but this pushes the envelope, and it may have been intended that way. Still, it's overloaded with antiquated language, and is hard going. Not recommended.

Another problem was John Guinan's "The Watcher O' the Dead," which is full of Irish dialect and vague plotting. It has something to do with someone taking the place of a soul doomed to wander a cemetery until doomsday...but the story, published in the 20s, hasn't aged well.

Finally, "Toussel's Pale Bride" by W. B. Seabrook ends the collection. Taken from a book called THE MAGIC ISLAND, it's a straightforward tale of a mixed-race girl who marries an Afro-Carib planter, and who is driven mad on the night of her first anniversary by a quite gruesome experience. Meant to represent "Voodoo," there actual zilch in the way of voodoo practices, but the final gruesome scene seems more like something from a serial-killer story than horror. The story has a journalistic flair to it, and I wonder if it's not meant to depict real events, or masquerade as true events. Hard to say. I may have to hunt down that book.

So, that's it for Summers. He had odd tastes, that's for sure, but some of the stories were loads of fun, and at least it brought Roger Pater to my notice.

I've got a few books to read next, but soon, if not right up next, I'll be doing another anthology, GASLIGHT GRIMOIRE, subtitled "Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes," and co-edited by Dust & Corruption fan Charles Prepolec. Yeah, I owe him that much, at least.

Till next time, my darlings....enjoy your springtime.

Belated Holiday Reading: GHOSTS FOR CHRISTMAS, edited by Richard Dalby

OK, so it's been a few weeks since Christmas was over, but hell, at least it's still January. I'd hate to be reading Christmas-themed stuff when the leaves are out and the birds are singing and all that...

GHOSTS FOR CHRISTMAS is a fun anthology, edited by the genre stalwart Richard Dalby, who's edited many great anthologies of ghost, horror, and mystery stories. It's well suited for those days of bleak midwinter, when you're taking a break from all the holiday hoo-ha, or the cold moonlit nights, when you're warming your feet by the fire and glancing over your shoulder at the darkness that covers the rest of the room.

There's 30 stories in the collection....let me run through them real quick.

"Our Ghost Party" by Jerome K. Jerome. An essay about the holiday tradition of fireside ghost stories, from a great Victorian humorist.

"The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton," by Charles Dickens. I don't like Dickens much, but this reads like a precursor to "A Christmas Carol."

"The Ghost Detective" by Mark Lemon. A cute tale of a crime solved by the ghost of a living person.

"The Dead Sexton" by J. Sheridan le Fanu. The Devil shows up for the soul of a departed sinner. May not be a classic, but hell, it's le Fanu, and worth checking out.

"Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson. A man commits a murder for gain, and a ghost, and guilt, torment his conscience. Not particularly appealing to me.

"The Ghost of Christmas Eve" by J. M. Barrie. Yeah, the guy who created Peter Pan. An OK story of an apparition of a living man.

"The Real and the Counterfeit" by Mrs. Alfred Baldwin. A delightfully cruel tale of a practical joke that goes horribly wrong when a ghost shows up to spoil the show.

"Number Ninety" by Mrs. B. M. Crocker. Unfortunate name, but a crackerjack story of a man spending the night alone in a haunted house. An unforgettable scene toward the end, when the narrator looks through the keyhole, and a burning red eye looks back! Very unsettling.

"Thurlow's Christmas Story" by John Kendrick Bangs. Another humorist that normally I'm not much for, but this time, he's got a metastory going on. A writer submits his excuse for not writing a ghost story for a magazine's Christmas issue...only to tell a fairly good ghost story!

"Their Dear Little Ghost" by Elia W. Peattie. The title says it all...rather cutesy and twee, not my bag at all.

"Wolverden Tower" by Grant Allen. A classic thriller author of the era, and a gloriously dark tale of preChristian hauntings. Loads of fun.

"A Ghost-Child" by Bernard Capes. Also rather precious and twee, not my bag.

"The Kit-Bag" by Algernon Blackwood. A lawyer preparing for a Christmas vacation packs the wrong bag. A fun, nasty story, from a master.

"The Shadow" by E. Nesbit. From a writer most famous for her children's stories, this is an effective, shuddery tale. Not brilliant, but with an impact.

"The Irtonwood Ghost" by Elinor Glyn. Glyn was a very famous novelist in the 20s, but is most famous today for being played by Joanna Lumley in the movie THE CAT'S MEOW (which I should blog about someday). This is a standard tale of an inheritance set to rights by a phantom visitor, but while it's nothing special, it's a solid piece of genre writing.

"Bone to His Bone" by E. G. Swain. A nice little story, from an author influenced by M. R. James, and part of his "Stoneground" series, which I'll blog about someday. Really.

"Transition" by Algernon Blackwood. Another story from the master, although not as good as the other one. Actually, it's a sort of tale that's been told dozens of times before, so it's a bit of a disappointment.

"The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" by M. R. James. Nothing one can say about this, but c'mon, it's M. R. James, of course it's going to be magnificent.

"The Sculptor's Angel" by Marie Corelli. I've read some other Corelli, and liked what I read...but for some reason, this just fell flat. Can't say why, it just didn't connect.

"The Snow" by Hugh Walpole. Chilly bit of nastiness as a vengeful ghost stalks a heartless woman. Fairly unpleasant, and not in a good way.

"Smee" by A. M. Burrage. Something odd happens during a game of hide-and-seek in an English country house. It's all rather obvious, but Burrage builds up the menace and atmosphere very nicely, and it's got more than its share of shudders. A longtime favorite of mine; I first read it in an anthology back in the early 80s, when I was in high school. It's one of the stories that led me to be the fan I am.

"The Prescription" by Marjorie Bowen. One of those stories when you KNOW a writer can do some really good stuff...but what you're reading isn't up to the usual standard. Not bad, but still....

"The Demon King" by J. B. Priestley. An unexpected cast member shows up for a Christmas pageant. Again, all very predictable, but for what it is, a solid example of what it is.

"Lucky's Grove" by H. R. Wakefield. Urgh....it's a good bit about how a Christmas tree chopped from a grove sacred to Loki can create havoc, but it's got the faults of Wakefield's later work, when he tended toward the pointlessly violent and nasty, sometimes almost hateful.

"'I Shall Take Proper Precautions'" by George H. Bushnell. Interesting wartime tale of time slippage and ghosts. Not bad.

"Christmas Meeting" by Rosemary Timperley. A charming vignette that dodges the cutesy and twee with some genuine emotion.

"Someone in the Lift" by L. P. Hartley. A child spending Christmas in a hotel finds Christmas a rather disturbing experience. No ghosts, so it doesn't really belong.

"The Christmas Present" by Ramsey Campbell. I disliked this story, but I'm not much for Campbell anyway.

"Christmas Entertainment" by Daphne Froome. A fun look at the old-style "ghost entertainments," with the line being crossed between fakery and genuine supernatural.

"Gebal and Ammon and Amalek" by David G. Rowlands. The most recent of the tales, it actually hearkens back to the old-style antiquarian ghost story, and therefore brings the collection full-circle.

All told, this was a very worthwhile collection, and in the end greater than the sum of its parts. It's a great companion on your holiday visits, good for when you snatch those quiet moments alone. Pick up a copy during the year, and keep it stashed away for Christmas of 2009.

Dalby edited another holiday anthology, CHILLERS FOR CHRISTMAS, which I may try to dip into before the spring comes. We'll see.