31 Days of Halloween - Day 2

Haunted Castles by Ray Russell
Penguin Books. 2013.


Haunted Castles collects seven short stories by former Playboy fiction editor, and screenwriter, Ray Russell. The stories included are the loosely linked trilogy, Sardonicus, Sagittarius, and Sanguinarius, as well as Comet Wine, The Runaway Lovers, The Vendetta, and The Cage. Russell is a master of the modern Gothic, mixing in a gleefully cruel streak akin to the Grand Guinol. Twisted, more than twist endings are to be found here. This is a perfect collection for the season from this underrated writer.

As a bonus, the book comes with a special introduction from Guillermo Del Toro which is no mere fluff piece from a name genre director, but an insightful look into this (and the other five volumes in this set of horror masterpieces that Del Toro oversaw [see the links below]) collection, showing that Del Toro has explored the deepest recesses of horror and fantasy.