Oliver Clarke's Blog: Little Slices of Nasty, page 8

87th Precinct Shorts: Reruns, Love or Money, Merely Hate #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: These three 87th Precinct short stories are essential for completists, but probably not for anyone else. 3/5

Title: Reruns / Love or Money / Merely Hate | Author: Ed McBain | Series: 87th Precinct #48.5 / #53.5 / #54.5 | Publisher: Various | Pages: Various | Publication date: 1997 / 2004 / 2005 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

There are 55 books in the 87th Precinct series. 53 novels, one illustrated short story (the Christmas tale ‘And All Through the Night’) and one collection of three novellas (‘The Empty Hours’). Given how prolific a write Ed McBain was, it’s probably no surprise that isn’t the whole story. If that impressive 55 book tally wasn’t enough, he also published one other novella and one and a half short stories. They range from very easy to get hold of, to somewhat trickier, but obsessive completist that at I am, I’ve got hold of them all. Spoiler free reviews of all three are included below so that you can decide if it’s worth the effort.

Reruns, published in ‘TV Guide’ for 11th-17th January 1997 4/5

This is the hardest one to acquire (at least a reasonable price) but also the one I enjoyed the most. Published in US TV listings magazine ‘TV Guide’ to coincide with the airing of some new 87th Precinct TV movies. It’s a brief but fully formed mystery that sees Carella and Meyer investigating the burglary of the apartment of a jobbing actor. It’s slight and silly but charming for all of that, and packs a great deal of enjoyment into a very few pages.

Series wise this fits between ‘Nocturne’ and ‘The Big Bad City’.

Love or Money, 2004, available on the BBC website 3/5

This is the half story referred to above, published as part of a series where the BBC commissioned favour writers to start a story and offered members of the public the opportunity to finish it. The tale (such as it is) features Carella and Meyer interviewing witnesses at a restaurant following the death by poisoning of a food critic. Given its incomplete nature, it’s hard to review properly, but it does have McBain’s trademark snappy dialogue adds sets up the mystery nicely.

Fits between ‘The Frumious Bandersnatch’ and ‘Hark!’.

Merely Hate, 2005, published in the ‘Transgressions’ anthology 3/5

Published as part of an anthology of novellas which McBain edited, this is an interesting if not wholly successful story. It plays a bit like the b-plot in a broader novel, with Carella and Meyer on the trail of a killer who is murdering Muslim taxi drivers. The events of 9/11 clearly had an impact on McBain and it’s interesting to see them creeping into his post-2001 books. It’s probably most explicit, and most even handed, here, with a couple of sensitive scenes about American Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks. The denouement is a bit of a let down, but it’s still an interesting read.

Fits between ‘Hark!’ and ‘Fiddlers’.

Warnings

Content Warning: Islamophobia

Tolerance Warning: All good

The Hustler by Walter Tevis #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Staggeringly good mix of sports underdog tale and crime novel, beautifully told. 5/5

Title: The Hustler | Author: Walter Tevis | Series: Eddie Felson #1 | Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Pages: 240 | Publication date: 1959 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

I’ve read 3 Tevis books in the last year or so, and each has been phenomenal. He’s in danger of becoming my favourite author. His style, both his prose and his storytelling, is incredibly straightforward. No tricks, no flourishes, just words and stories that flow into brain with no friction at all.

‘The Hustler’ was his first book in 1959, famously filmed with Paul Newman in the lead role as Fast Eddie, a talented young pool hustler. It’s a classic riches to rags to riches type tale of the sort that Hollywood loves. It starts with a fantastic battle between Eddie and an older champion, Minnesota Fats, which Eddie nearly wins and then loses. The rest of the book has him building himself up again from nothing for a rematch.

Just as he did later in his novel about a chess prodigy, ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, Tevis does a brilliant job of drawing tension out of the games Eddie plays, without the reader needing to understand the intricacies of pool. I ended up feeling like an expert on the game, although in sure that’s an illusion.

Despite not being a sports fan, I’m a sucker for sports stories and this is a great one. The highs and the lows of the matches, with the added zing of the danger that comes from the seedier side of pool hall hustling, make for fantastically entertaining reading.

Best of all, Eddie is a great character and one I ended up wholeheartedly rooting for. He’s a kind of Everyman of young male hubris and determination and makes the book feel more meaningful than it might have otherwise. Add to that Tevis’s gorgeously sparse prose and you have a book that I’d recommend to anyone.

Synopsis

Fast Eddie Felson has a reputation as a pool hustler to be feared, but his ambitions go far beyond taking small-town punks for a few bucks here and there. He has the talent to make big money, but he soon learns that it takes more than natural ability to become a real winner. He heads to Chicago to test himself against the legendary Minnesota Fats in more than forty-hours of high-stakes pool. Can he find the will to overcome his failings and fulfil his potential as the best there is?

Warnings

Content Warning: Gambling

Tolerance Warning: All good

Edge – The Blue, the Grey and the Red by George G Gilman #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: More ambitious than the previous books, the sixth in the Edge series mixes western, war and detective fiction tropes to great effect. 4/5

Title: The Blue, the Grey and the Red | Author: George G Gilman | Series: Edge #6 | Publisher: New English Library | Pages: 128 | Publication date: 1973 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: Yes

Review

The Blue, the Grey and the Red’, book six in the Edge series, is a semi-sequel to the fourth book ‘Killer’s Edge’. Like its predecessor, it splits the action between modern day (for Edge at least) and our anti-hero’s time as a captain in the Union army during the American Civil War. Interestingly, the book had a different title in the US – ‘Red River’. I’ve been scratching my head as to why that might be and the only thing I can think of is that western fans from the southern states might not like being reminded of the Confederacy’s defeat.

It feels a more ambitious book than previous ones, mixing the normal western troops (poker games and saloon shoot outs), with the continuation of Edge’s war story, and a fairly satisfying detective story. In the present day narrative, Edge is arrested for a murder he didn’t commit by a corrupt San Franciscan sheriff and has to rely on the assistance of an honest deputy to get him out of trouble. There’s a bit of 19th century police procedural and an enjoyable courtroom scenes to spice things up a little.

The war story is where most of the series’ trademark brutality is located, with Captain Josiah Hedges and his men up against a ruthless gang of pillaging confederates. Massacres, kidnappings, and an excellent train hijack keep the story moving at breakneck speed.   

There’s also the usual does of humour, with it straying into the comically absurd in this book. Gilman delights in throwing in subtle references that make no sense in the context of a western. He covers World War 2, pop songs about San Francisco and even mentions noted feminist Germaine Greer. Spotting these little gags makes the book even more entertaining than it might have been otherwise and displays a playfulness in Gilman’s writing that is quite endearing. His treatment of female and gay characters is far less acceptable, but probably par for the course in this kind of thing.

Synopsis

Jailed for a killing he didn’t commit, Edge’s memory is jogged by the prisoner in the next cell. Where had he met him? Was it after Shiloh?

Travelling back to the bloody days of the Civil War, Edge’s mind takes him to the horrors of Andersonville prison camp, where thousands of Union soldiers died in conditions of indescribable squalor – died of disease, cruelty and starvation.

A follow-up to Edge: Killer’s Breed, this new adventure has all the well-known ingredients of authenticity, action, violence and gallows humour. When the armies in blue meet the armies in grey, the land is tainted with red!

Warnings

Tolerance Warning: Sexist, homophobic

Content Warning: Racism, homophobia, sexual violence

Hark! by Ed McBain #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Above par deaf man novel that amuses and fascinates in equal measure. 4/5

Title: Hark! | Author: Ed McBain | Series: 87th Precinct #54 | Publisher: Orion | Pages: 351 | Publication date: 2004 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

The joy of the Deaf Man novels is that they allow McBain to indulge his most playful side. ‘Hark!’ the penultimate 87th Precinct book is no exception. This entry sees Carella’s nemesis (now going under the name Adam Fen) deluging the precinct with clues to his next caper in the form of anagrams and palindromes. As ever, there isn’t really a clear explanation of why the master criminal should be tipping his foes off, but it’s so much fun you can’t really complain about it.

Aside from the Deaf Man’s antics, there is a load of character based content to enjoy here. Carella, coming to terms with his sister and mother’s double wedding to men he doesn’t approve of. Bert Kling’s jealousy threatening his relationship with Sharyn Cooke. Cotton Hawes and new girlfriend Honey Blair getting shot at. Plus an unexpected new romance within the squad-room. And of course there’s Ollie Weeks’ content, with the rotund detective finally finding the thief who stole his manuscript in ‘Fat Ollie’s Book’ and continuing to develop his relationship with Latinx patrol officer Patricia Gomez. McBain usually throws at least one of the ongoing character stories into these later novels, but to cover so many of them is unusual, but very satisfying.

This is one of the better Deaf Man books, silly but not over-complicated like some of them are. It’s funny, fun and keeps the reader guessing. The puzzles in themselves are very entertaining, whether you make the effort to try and decipher them or not. The Deaf Man continues to delight as a character, a joyous mix of evil genius and slightly pathetic loser. The richness of the character-based storylines definitely adds something, and it’s hard not to reflect on the fact that this was the penultimate novel in the series.

Synopsis

I’m a Fathead, Men!
I Am the Deaf Man!
Unscrambling the cryptic messages — anagrams, Detective Carella called them — delivered to the 87th Precinct confirmed that the master criminal who has eluded them time and again is not only alive and well, but may or may not be behind a deadly revenge shooting. For that matter, the Deaf Man may or may not be deaf. But he’s getting through loud and clear with clues drawn from Shakespeare’s works — taunting hints and maddening riddles pointing to his next plan of attack. It doesn’t take a literary scholar to know there’s no room for misinterpretation. For when the Deaf Man talks, everybody listens…or somebody gets hurt,

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, sexual violence

Tolerance Warning: All good

The American Gun Mystery by Ellery Queen #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: An engaging old school mystery, even if the telling is a bit lacking. 3/5

Title: The American Gun Mystery | Author: Ellery Queen | Series: Ellery Queen #6 | Publisher: Penzler Publishers | Pages: 317 | Publication date: 5th October 2021 (Originally published 1933) | Source: Publisher | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: Yes

Review

This is the first Ellery Queen book I’ve read. He was an author I was aware of, perhaps mostly because of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine which published short stories by many of the great American crime writers, but who I didn’t know much about. In fact I didn’t even know that Queen was a pseudonym used by two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. Ellery Queen is, intriguingly, also the name of the detective.

This is the sixth of the series, published in this new edition with a new introduction from publisher Otto Penzler. Penzler hails Queen as the giant of the inter war Golden Age of American mystery writing and a peer of the likes of Agatha Christie. I’m not entirely convinced by that comparison, but I did enjoy the puzzle that Dannay and Lee laid out in The American Gun Mystery.

The hallmark of this type of mystery is a crime early on that seems impossible to solve. That’s certainly the case here, with Buck Horne, noted star of numerous silent westerns, shot dead on his horse as he takes part in the dramatic opening of a new rodeo show along with 40 other riders. The mystery lies in the fact that he has been shot dead with a gun that cannot then be found and which is of a markedly different type to the many others surround Buck at the time of his death.

It’s an engaging conundrum, and the solution, when it is laid out by Queen at the end is credible if slightly unlikely. Crucially, the clues to solve it were, with the benefit of hindsight, all there in the text, that being the test of a so-called ‘fair play’ mystery.

For a book that is nearly 90 years old it is all very readable, although the middle section did drag a bit, being full of the kind of red herrings that are essential to this kind of tale. The dialogue is definitely on the stifled side and Queen himself is far from likeable. When this kind of genius detective character is done well it can work (think Holmes or Poirot) but here I found myself at times hoping that Queen wouldn’t solve the crime because he was such an arrogant dick. Even more problematic was the treatment of Djuna, a Romany boy whom Queen has adopted and “civilised”. It’s the kind of casual racism that was common in the 1930s, and which leaves a bad taste in the mouth today. A more palatable anachronism is the use of the word Brobdingnagian, which I’ve never seen outside of the Lemony Snickets books.

Overall this is a fun vintage read. The mystery is engaging and the solution amusing, even if the telling of it leaves a little to be desired. If I were rating them separately I’d probably give the mystery 4 stars and the writing 2. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which you value more

Synopsis

Ellery Queen investigates a murder at the circus rodeo.

When a washed up Hollywood cowboy-turned-circus rodeo actor is shot dead in the midst of his performance at a New York sports-palace, in front of thousands of onlookers, it seems obvious that someone would have seen the perpetrator of the crime—or at the very least, recovered the gun. But when the ensuing investigation fails to turn up any evidence, even after the newsreels made in the moment are reviewed, the net of suspicion widens across the troupe of performers and the circus staff. Who among them is cunning enough to have constructed such a baffling murder scene?

Unluckily for the murderer, genius sleuth Ellery Queen is among the thousands that witnessed the crime, and he won’t be satisfied until he cuts through the confusion to discover the truth of the execution. By the time he uncovers all the necessary clues and delivers his patented “Challenge to the Reader,” Queen (and his most careful readers) will be able to expose both the killer and the hiding place of the weapon—the titular American Gun that fired the fatal bullet.

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism

Tolerance Warning: Racism

Edge – Blood on Silver by George G Gilman #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Mean-spirited and intolerant, but brutal fun nevertheless 4/5

Title: Blood on Silver | Author: George G Gilman | Series: Edge #5 | Publisher: New English Library | Pages: 125 | Publication date: 1972 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: Yes

Review

Edge is back and as ruthless a son of a bitch as ever. This, the 5th book in the series, starts with him calmly watching as a wedding party including women and children is slaughtered by a vicious gang led by a huge, red-bearded Quaker. Our anti-hero stays in hiding until the killers have left, then proceeds to help himself to food and champagne from the wedding breakfast. It’s fair to say that, as advertised, Edge isn’t your in of the mill white hatted cowboy protagonist.

The story progresses with Edge pissing off the Quaker and then teaming up with man mountain Zulu warrior Anatali to escort a wagon full of silver. Before the book is out, we’re treated to crosses, double crosses, chases and of course tonnes of graphic violence (including a couple of pretty unpleasant torture scenes). In the end, Edge does something vaguely decent, but only because it’s no more real effort than being an arsehole.

It’s as gripping and grimly enjoyable as you’d expect, if you’ve read any of the other books in the series. Anatali makes for an interesting partner for Edge. Strong, principled and stoical, if a little naïve, he’s almost the opposite of the wily, ruthless Mexican/Swedish hero. It’s disappointing (although maybe not entirely surprising), that Gilman relies on some pretty crude racial stereotypes at times, but then 70s pulp westerns probably aren’t the right place to look for balanced representation. The book also features the kind of brutal misogyny that’s common in the pulps, with female characters mostly there to be abused and then saved.

Sometimes I question whether I should enjoy books that are this mean-spirited and intolerant, but the sparse writing and the bloody action are enough to make me put my concerns to one side. So much popular culture falls short in some way or another that policing one’s own enjoyment of it feels like a futile task, as well as a slippery slope.

Synopsis

The Comstock Lode was one of the richest silver strikes the world had ever seen, and Edge was ready to claim his share. So was the Tabor gang–sadistic killers led by a renegade Quaker. But if the Tabors thought they could get Edge’s silver, they were going to find another metal instead–hot lead!

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, sexual violence, torture

Tolerance Warning: Racism, sexism, homophobia

The Frumious Bandersnatch by Ed McBain #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Sub par 87th Precinct mystery is bolstered by some strong character based storylines. 3/5

Title: The Frumious Bandersnatch | Author: Ed McBain | Series: 87th Precinct #53 | Publisher: Orion | Pages: 304 | Publication date: 2003 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

This, the 53rd of the 87th Precinct books is somewhat disappointing. It’s certainly tense, but lacks the humour and psychological insight that characterises the best if McBain’s work. It’s also, dare I say it, a bit long at around 300 pages. Given that there is just the single plot line in this one, a more slender volume might have been a better read.

McBain returns to the music biz in this one, as he did a few books ago in ‘Mischief’. This time the story revolves around the kidnapping of a young female singer on the brink of super-stardom. Carella gets pulled into the investigation, along side a supposedly elite but actually quite rubbish specialist squad. Whilst there are a few twists along the way, there’s little mystery and the linear plot drags a little. After the highly amusing ‘Fat Ollie’s Book’, it all feels a bit lacking in spark and fun.

Ollie Weeks does get to make an appearance, with a sub plot about his personal life, and his scenes are entertaining, as are those featuring Cotton Hawes and reporter Honey Blair.

The main story is downbeat and a bit nasty. There’s a lot of discussion of rape and race, in response to the singer’s promo video for her new single, which features her being attacked by a black dancer. It’s all a bit rambling though, and lacks the punch that McBain’s writing on such things sometimes has.

More interesting is Carella’s ongoing musings on his Italian heritage and his place in the police department as a result. As in other recent books he feels a bit more fallible and human in this tale than he once did. He’s always seemed to be McBain’s idealised version of himself. This late introduction of weakness, just as McBain’s body was failing him as his health deteriorated, is an interesting addition to the books.

Synopsis

The kidnapping was audacious, and there were plenty of witnesses…

But no one attending the dazzling launch party for up-and-coming pop idol Tamar Valparaiso knew what they were seeing when, halfway through her performance, masked men whisked the sexy young singer off a luxury yacht and into a waiting speedboat. Now, the evening that was supposed to send Tamar’s debut album, “Bandersnatch, ” skyrocketing with a million-dollar promotional campaign has instead kicked off a terrifying countdown for Steve Carella and the detectives of the 87th Precinct. Time is their enemy in the race to find Tamar’s abductors — before the rising star is extinguished forever

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, sexual violence

Tolerance Warning: All good

If It Bleeds by Stephen King #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Enjoyable but average collection of novellas from the grand old man of horror that feels like a bad photocopy of his best work 3/5

Title: If It Bleeds | Author: Stephen King | Publisher: Scribner | Pages: 416 | ISBN: 9781529391572 | Publication date: 21st April 2020 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

‘If It Bleeds’ is a collection of four Stephen King novellas that’s enjoyable enough but suffers from containing stories that often feel like retreads of things King has written before. I powered through it in a couple of days and had fun with it, but unless you’re a die hard fan I’m not sure I’d unreservedly recommend it.

The first story, ‘Mr Harrigan’s Phone’ is a good example of the book as a whole. It’s a classic King tale about am everyday object with apparently supernatural powers (evil ones of course). In this case it’s an iPhone, by which I mean the very first one, from back in 2007. The benefit of hindsight allows King to make some decent points about the impact smart phones on modern life, but the actual horror part of the story feels overly familiar. There are coming of age themes too, which he always does well, and they lift the story a little, but overall it’s nothing to write (or text) home about.

Story number two ‘The Life of Chuck’ is told in three parts. The first is a wonderfully surreal apocalyptic comedy. The world is ending, and all anyone seems to care about it the fact that Chuck Krantz, an accountant, is retiring. Parts two and three detail earlier chapters in Chuck’s life. They’re fun enough, but the triptych just didn’t hang together as a whole for me.

Title story ‘If it Bleeds’ comes next and is the one I (and I suspect many other readers) was most anticipating. It’s a sequel to King’s 2018 novel ‘The Outsider’, featuring the enormously appealing Holly Gibney, who also appears in the Bill Hodges books. King writes in the afterword that Holly was originally just supposed to be an incidental character but that she grew and grew. It’s not hard to see why. She’s an enormously principled neurodiverse detective who it’s impossible not to root for. I really enjoyed spending time with her again, even if the actual story isn’t amazing. It reads a bit like a rehash of ‘The Outsider’, but without the sense of horror that book had. Appropriately perhaps, I couldn’t help feeling it played like a TV movie spin off to the blockbuster ‘The Outsider’. Watered down and less ambitious, but still a fun ride.

Final tale, ‘Rat’, is the best one. A story of a struggling writer trying to finally complete a novel it features so many of King’s favourite themes it’s hard not to enjoy as a fan. Writing, isolation and supernatural weirdness combine to make a story that’s fun to read and will probably ring true for anyone who has tried to write themselves.

Overall then, ‘If It Bleeds’ is a fun diversion, but feels like little more than that.

Synopsis

News people have a saying: ‘If it bleeds, it leads’. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog – and on her own need to be more assertive – when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realises something is not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins ‘If It Bleeds’, a stand-alone sequel to the No. 1 bestselling THE OUTSIDER featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case – and also the riveting title story in Stephen King’s brilliant new collection.

Dancing alongside are three more wonderful long stories from this ‘formidably versatile author’ (The Sunday Times) – ‘Mr Harrigan’s Phone’, ‘The Life of Chuck’ and ‘Rat’. All four display the richness of King’s storytelling with grace, humour, horror and breathtaking suspense. A fascinating Author’s Note gives us a wonderful insight into the origin of each story and the writer’s unparalleled imagination

Warnings

Content Warning: Bullying

Tolerance Warning: All good

Edge – Killer’s Breed by George G Gilman #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: An interesting change of pace for the series, with a focus on Edge’s back story. It’s still absolutely brutal though. 4/5

Title: Killer’s Breed | Author: George G Gilman | Series: Edge #4 | Publisher: New English Library | Pages: 158 | Publication date: 1972 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: Yes

Review

Four books into the ‘Edge’ series and George G Gilman (aka British author Terry Harknett) gives us his lead’s origin story. The timing of it is perfect and evidence of Harknett’s talent as a writer. It’s easy to dismiss someone who churned out getting on for 200 pulp novels, mostly under pen names, as a hack. To do so ignores the simple brilliance of his books. They’re little slices of pulp perfection. Gripping tales of violence and vengeance that pack a punch, fire up the blood and appeal to our baser instincts.

Following on directly from the previous book (‘Apache Death’), ‘Killer’s Breed’ sees a critically injured Edge returning to his family home. Anyone who has read previous books will know that every single member of his family is dead, so it’s no surprise that it is now occupied by strangers . The mother and daughter take him in and the rest of the book alternates between current events as Edge gradually recovers, and his memories of his early days as a soldier in the Civil War.

The result is a book that feels quite different from the previous three, whilst still being true to the sprit of the series. The younger Joe Hedges, unblooded and still a virgin farm boy, is poles apart from the brutal killer we have seen so far, but the transition we witness feels credible. This is a war story as much as it is a western, and much is made of the horror of conflict and its impact on both soldiers and civilians.

Gilman builds the tension perfectly, with threats to both the younger and older Edge. The usual graphic sex and violence abound, and are used just as well as in previous books. Whilst the reader never doubts that Edge will survive to fight another day, there is always the question of how. This time around the ending is surprising and rather wonderful, rounding off another very enjoyable entry in the series.

Synopsis

It wasn’t the way he was born or brought up. Something happened. Something that turned him, mind and soul, into a case-hardened man. His was a life shaped by death. He was a man alone, living by his own personal code, and committed to violence as a means of survival.

In this, the fourth chapter of his story, we see how Josiah Hedges, now known as Edge, brought his vicious brand of combat into the carnage we’ve come to refer as our civil war, and survivors of both sides were left with the feeling that this was a man fighting a war of his own.

Warnings

Content Warning: Rape

Tolerance Warning: Homophobia

When Things Get Dark by Ellen Datlow #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: An excellent short story collection in its own right, and an admirable tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson. 5/5

Title: When Things Get Dark | Editor: Ellen Datlow | Publisher: Titan Books | Pages: 384 | Publication date: 21st September 2021 | Source: Publisher | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: No

Review

I went into this short story collection slightly nervous and not really knowing what to expect. I love short stories and I love Shirley Jackson (especially her short stories!), but could a group of modern authors really do justice to her legacy? The answer is a resounding yes. ‘When Things Get Dark’ is a fantastic collection and editor Ellen Datlow has done a brilliant job of pulling together stories that really do evoke Jackson’s work without just being slavish cover versions of her hits.

There are eighteen stories contained within and whilst I didn’t love every single one (a couple are let down by weak endings), the vast majority are very good or excellent. They range from a few pages to almost novella length and cover a variety of themes and styles. As you’d expect, female protagonists and slightly creepy small towns abound, but the tales are sufficiently different from each other that the book never feels same.

You’ll doubtless recognise at least a few of the authors on the contents page, and the big names like Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman and Stephen Graham Jones all deliver. In fact Oates’ story of casual but chilling child abuse and Malerman’s disorienting dystopian tale of a world where maths is banned were two of my favourites.

I’d also call out the first story ‘Funeral Birds’ by M Rickert and the final two, ‘Tiptoe’ by Laird Barron and ‘Skinder’s Veil’ by Kelly Link. All three felt like classic Jackson to me. Beautifully crafted slices of mystery where there is a very real menace lurking just out of sight. They’ve all lingered with me since I finished them in a way that is both unsettling and deeply satisfying.

If you’re a Jackson fan, or even if you aren’t, ‘When Things Get Dark’ is definitely worth picking up. Short stories don’t get the attention they used to nowadays, this collection acts as a reminder that when they’re done well they can be every bit as rich and memorable as a novel.

Synopsis

Legendary editor, Ellen Datlow, collects today’s best horror writers in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more.

A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers.

This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.

Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, and Genevieve Valentine.

Warnings

Content Warning: Child abuse, self harm

Tolerance Warning: All good