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Post by dem on Jan 20, 2014 17:52:54 GMT
Arrived today, and already the dem official book on the go. Many, many thanks to my dear friend Sam at Constable-Robinson for providing a copy of Stephen Jones' recent Bloch-buster. Stephen Jones (ed.) - Psycho-Mania! (Robinson, Oct. 2013)  Les Edwards
John Llewellyn Probert - Prologue: Screams In The Dark
Joe R. Lansdale - I Tell You It's Love
Reggie Oliver - The Green Hour
Steve Rasnic Tem - The Secret Laws Of The Universe
Basil Copper - The Recompensing Of Albano Pizar
David A. Sutton - Night Soil Man
Brian Hodge - Let My Smile Be Your Umbrella
Scott Edelman - The Trembling Living Wire
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #1
Robert Silverberg - The Undertaker's Sideline
Joel Lane - The Long Shift
Brian Lumley - The Man Who Photographed Beardsley
Lisa Morton - Hollywood Hannah
Paul McAuley - I Spy
Mike Carey - Reflections On The Critical Process
David J. Schow - The Finger
Lawrence Block - Hot Eyes, Cold Eyes
Jay Russell - Hush ... Hush, Sweet Shushie
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #2
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Gatecrasher
Robert Shearman - That Tiny Flutter of The Heart I Used To Call Love
Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart
Dennis Etchison - Got To Kill Them All
Mark Morris - Essence
Michael Kelly - The Beach
Robert Bloch - Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #3
Ramsey Campbell - See How They Run
Conrad Williams - Manners
Christopher Fowler - Bryant & May And The Seven Points
Harlan Ellison® - All The Birds Come Home To Roost
Rio Youers - Wide Shining Light
Neil Gaiman - Feminine Endings
Peter Crowther - Eater
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #4
Peter Crowther - Mr Mellor Comes To Wayside
Michael Marshall - Failure
Kim Newman - The Only Ending We Have
Richard Christian Matheson - Kriss Kross Applesauce
John Llewellyn Probert - Epilogue: A Little Piece Of Sanity
Case NotesBlurb (from Stephen Jones Editor.com) WE ALL GO A LITTLE MAD SOMETIMES . . . When journalist Robert Stanhope arrives at the Crowsmoor asylum for the criminally insane to interview the institute's enigmatic director, Dr Lionel Parrish, little does he realise that an apparently simple series of tests will lead him into a terrifying world of murder and insanity . . . In this chilling new anthology, compiled by multiple award-winning editor Stephen Jones, some of the biggest and brightest name in horror and crime fiction come together to bring you twisted tales of psychos, schizoids and serial-killers, many with a supernatural twist. Reggie Oliver revives Edgar Allan Poe's wily French detective C. Auguste Dupin, there is a new "Bryant & May" London mystery from Christopher Fowler, child actor turned private eye Marty Burns investigates a quirky Hollywood case by Jay Russell, and international best-selling author Michael Marshall returns to The Straw Men conspiracy. With a never-before-published Introduction by Robert Bloch (author of Psycho), along with one of his most famous and iconic stories, this volume also features an original wraparound sequence in the style of the author by John Llewellyn Probert. Add classic reprints by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Basil Copper and Dennis Etchison, along with original fiction by Peter Crowther, Brian Hodge, Richard Christian Matheson, Paul McAuley, Lisa Morton, Robert Shearman, Steve Rasnic Tem and many others, and you would have to be out of your mind not to take a stab at these stories!Robert Bloch - Introduction: Evidently, Psycho-Mania! was several years in the planning, as "The man who wrote ..." etc., refers to "this book", although the piece is otherwise devoted to Psycho, reminding us that he wrote Norman Bates much as Les Edwards depicts him on the cover, i.e., middle aged and paunchy, as opposed to the young, atheletic Anthony Perkins model of our nightmares. And then we're away! John Llewellyn Probert - Prologue: Screams In The Dark: Crowsmoor, an asylum on the moors, built during Victoria's reign and now housing a number of the worlds most dangerous madmen, maybe a hundred patients, too. The Director, Dr. Lionel Parrish, is upset by a series of sensationalist newspaper reports alleging all manner of abuse and incompetence at his Institution. So Robert Stanhope, the arrogant young whelp responsible for the articles, wants an exclusive interview, does he? well he will have to earn it! To establish if Stanhope can indeed discern fact from fiction, Parrish proposes a test. He will read aloud from several case studies, Stanhope will decide which are real and which the product of the Director's grisly imagination .... Joe R. Lansdale - I Tell You It's Love: (Modern Stories, 1983). Short, sharp confession of a serial killer whose final victim - at her insistence - was dockside prostitute Gloria, his fanatically masochistic, inventively sadistic partner in crime. Very Natural Born Killers, but with a different kind of happy ending. to be very continued ... |
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Post by dem on Jan 21, 2014 20:00:50 GMT
Reggie Oliver - The Green Hour: June 1867, and a proto-Ripper stalks the Paris Exhibition. A desperate Commissioner Viardot pins his hopes on his old friend, C. Auguste Dupin. Surely the magnitude of the crimes will tempt the absinthe-addled master detective from self-imposed retirement? Lupin. suitably intrigued, swifty establishes that the culprit is a syphlitic Opera-obsessive and fellow devotee of "the green fairy," which is all very well but hardly of comfort to the seventh victim who has just lost her face, guts and ears. When the demented Marquis de Saint-Loup is discovered crooning over the butchered corpse, Viardot is confident that they have their man, but Dupin is less easily satisfied. Steve Rasnic Tem - The Secret Laws Of The Universe: Ed dearly loves his wife, Jillian, but various household utensils - the toaster is particularly insistent - urge him to kill her as, yes, it is all very sad, but only when he's rid of her will he achieve his full potential, claim his rightful place in the universe. Soon the house and car are in on the act until, panicked, he accidentally murders the milkman. Having broken his duck, there's no stopping him. Basil Copper - The Recompensing Of Albano Pizar: (Richard Davis [ed.] The Years Best Horror Stories: 3 , 1973). Corpulent Literary agent Pizar betrays the hospitality of Mme Freitas by stealing a folder of love letters written by her late husband. To add insult to injury, these steamy billet-doux are addressed to a mistress from early in their marriage. Soon the contents are splashed across the scandal sheets and the Palazzo Tortini is besieged by reporters eager for an interview with the widow. Together with her loyal friend Dr. Marizanares, Mme Freitas plans a grisly vengeance. Pizar finds himself manacled by a wrist in the vaults far beneath the Palazzo. If the sewer-rats don't eat him alive first, the incoming tide will surely drown him unless he makes good use of the razor-sharp cleaver they've thoughtfully provided for his "protection" .... David A. Sutton - Night Soil Man: When London becomes too dicey, the Ripper high tails it to his home town, Wednesbury in the Black Country. Taking up lodgings at the home of recently married and heavily pregnant Mrs Mole, he returns to work as a chimney sweep. But the beast has no trouble tracking him down, and it is soon business as usual. Brian Hodge - Let My Smile Be Your Umbrella: An eternal optimist with a down on the wilfully miserable (or just plain realistic) makes it his business to usher we gloomy ones to the grave. Deborah, aka HungryGirl234, who has achieved dubious internet celebrity on account of her anorexia porn blogging, is clearly crying out for his gift. Deborah is such an attention seeker, she even "accidentally" provides her home address on-line. He travels to Portland with his trusty blade. Moral. Don't worry, be happy. Or I'll kill you I guess the danger with a theme anthology of mostly new material is that the stories might be a bit samey, but six stories in, and no sign of that. Long may it continue.
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Post by dem on Jan 22, 2014 11:36:22 GMT
Scott Edelman - The Trembling Living Wire: Meet Iz, the mad music master of Helen Keller Middle School. Who would suspect such a kindly, gentle old duffer of perpetrating house fires, pet murders, fatal 'accidents,' etc., - and all for the benefit of his protégés in the school choir! Cecelia, a shy loner newly arrived at the school, already has the most beautiful singing voice he's ever heard. Imagine what she'll be like once he's worked his magic! Sorrow, pain, bereavement = Great art.
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #1: Back with Dr. Parrish and Mr. Stanhope at Crowsmoor, and the hack believes he's identified the solitary true story to date. The Director, who neither confirms nor denies this, rewards him with the nasty case history of Prof. Mortenhoe, a fiend with a violin. Who needs cat gut when God gave us blondes?
Robert Silverberg - The Undertaker's Sideline: (L. T. Shaw [ed.],Monsters & Things, April 1959. as by 'Richard F. Watson).. Mr. J. Michael Tenneshaw, Reeseport's sombre, highly respected mortician, moonlights as Plattville's chirpy family butcher, 'Mike Tenny', whose 'special lamb cuts' are the stuff of legend. Actually, they're the stuff of ... well, what the customers don't know can't hurt them. The undertaker's financially lucrative sideline is threatened when a young Plattville busybody stumbles upon jolly old Mr. Tenny processing tomorrows special.
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Post by ripper on Jan 22, 2014 13:36:19 GMT
I am really enjoying your summaries, Dem, and this sounds like a must-get book.
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Post by dem on Jan 22, 2014 21:19:44 GMT
I am really enjoying your summaries, Dem, and this sounds like a must-get book. Having a great time with it, Rip. Mr. Jones has involved most of his tried and trusted authors in the project, and to date they've all come up with the gory goods. Joel Lane - The Long Shift: His attempt at going freelance having collapsed in alcoholic meltdown, Jim's solitary remaining objective in life is to avenge himself on the man he holds responsible for its ruin. Baxter, his former boss at Neotechnic, is the model sack-happy despot of corporate world. His bullying has wrecked the lives of several and drove one junior employee to suicide. Poor Jim. Armed with a knife, he breaks into Baxter's South Wales barn-house after dark to be confronted by nightmarish scenes reminiscent of Robert Aickman's The Hospice. He should have realised by now that the Baxters of this world didn't get where they are by giving a fuck about their fellow man. Brian Lumley - The Man Who Photographed Beardsley: An old friend from Hugh Lamb's Star Book of Horror 2. Our mad artist stages a dramatic reconstruction of Aubrey Beardsley's most famous work. Even as he's dragged off to a padded cell, he's already making plans for his next project ..... Lisa Morton - Hollywood Hannah: One for the film-crew-in-peril enthusiasts among us. Our 23 year old female narrator lands an unpaid intern-ship under feared Hollywood director Hannah Ward. Hollywood Hannah's rise to the top of the pile in a male-dominated industry has seen more than its share of battles, and her ball-breaker reputation is hard earned, something she ably demonstrates on the set of crime thriller, The Lowdown .... All this, and still over 350 pages to go ... |
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Post by dem on Jan 23, 2014 22:19:22 GMT
Paul McAuley - I Spy: (Stephen Jones [ed.] White of the Moon: New Tales of Madness and Dread, 1999). Dad was a war hero who, having escaped Poland, enlisted with the RAF to take the battle to the Nazis. After the conflict, he found it impossible to adapt to civilian life, and his family suffer terribly as a consequence. A drunken tyrant at home, he regularly beat his wife and little boy senseless.
At school, the boy attains official class freak status. Even the bullies are wary of him. As he grows, he develops several worrying traits - shoplifting, housebreaking, voyeurism, sadism toward family pets. By the time he's reached his mid-teens, inspired by Science Fiction novels and comic book heroes, the kid has found his role in life. He is an Avenger, punishing all those who, to his way of thinking, have escaped JUSTICE. And now dead dad has shown up on the CCTV screen. Things are about to get very out of hand ....
Mike Carey - Reflections On The Critical Process: Mandelson's three most recent novels have bombed, so when critic Peasey dismisses his latest, House Of Blood - "A prime Gothic cock-up, a puerile resurrection of a literary form that should have been allowed to die with Lewis and Shelley" etc. - the author is far from amused. Let's see if the smarmy bastard likes Sports Centre Of No Return any better!
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Post by dem on Jan 24, 2014 16:22:41 GMT
David J. Schow - The Finger: As that rarest of life-forms, a pedestrian in LA, the narrator, an unemployed web technician, has his pick of all the junk that finds its way onto the side-walk - the single shoe (even weirder when its a pair), the rag doll, the oil painting, the severed human finger. The latter is unquestionably the pride of his collection because, once he has it home, the finger regenerates at an alarming rate. Fully formed, 'Bob', as he christens it, fixes all those who have ever upset his guardian by tearing out their hearts. Estranged wife Samantha and her lousy spawn are but the first of several.
Lawrence Block - Hot Eyes, Cold Eyes: All through the day she feels their lustful eyes upon her, their twisted minds locked in private fantasies of rape and humiliation. It is intolerable. Nights are a different matter. Nights she dresses to the sluttish nines and cruises the most dangerous bars, dismissing all comers until Mr. Right makes his approach. Does she wanna come back to his place? Of course!
Jay Russell - Hush ... Hush, Sweet Shushie: Marty Burns, the former child star (Burning Bright, etc.) turned corpulent, booze-addled private dick, is lured from retirement by the first and maddest of his several ex-wives. Shoshona 'Shushie' Horowitz informs him that ElronD, the son he never knew he had, is in above his head, having ripped off a particularly violent porn director whose sidelines include 'crush' videos (I'm not gonna tell you). Our fanatically un-P.C. hero wobbles to the rescue - or so he thinks.
John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #2: "Do you have many female patients upstairs?" Dr. Parrish is again elusive - he really is a card. I'm growing to like him - and instead turns the conversation to comparatively rare instances of 'Ripper Psychosis.' Which sets us up just so for reunion with another familiar face ...
Incidentally, you probably can get away with dipping in and out of the collection at random, but to get the best from Lord P.'s framing device, would advise you approach Psycho-Mania! as you would a novel. It's worth the effort!
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Post by dem on Jan 25, 2014 17:53:39 GMT
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Gatecrasher: ( The Unbidden, 1971). Edward Charlton and his trendy friends hold an impromptu seance - and summon forth the spirit of Jack the Ripper. Saucy Jack soon has total dominion over Edward and together they prowl Soho, picking up working girls to butcher back at the flat off Edgware Road. When the downstairs neighbour grows suspicious that those stains on his ceiling are maybe not the result of spilt red wine after all, its time for the pair to part company. Robert Shearman - That Tiny Flutter of The Heart I Used To Call Love: Hardened by a childhood ritual initiated by her troubled elder brother Nicholas, Karen accepts that she must sacrifice all that is dearest to her or else the love she feels is meaningless. What began as the violent execution of her dollies takes a far more dangerous turn as she enters adulthood. Julian, a fellow outcast, chances along at the worst moment for Karen has now decided it is time to take a husband. Her cold practicality and almost complete absence of emotion ought to have warned him, but Julian comes to love his wife and she him. Now the moment has come for him to prove it. You've possibly met this next on your travels, too. Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart: (The Pioneer, Jan. 1843). Poe’s work has been done to death by millions better than me, so will spare you the illiterate-eye view and mention that I like him best when he’s at his most hilariously ghoulish. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator, at pains to assure us of his sanity, commits premeditated murder on an old neighbour with whom he has no quarrel whatsoever: he just can’t abide one of his eyes. After spying on the old fellow for several nights and revelling in his discomfort, the murderer flattens him under his own bed, dismembers the body and conceals it beneath the floorboards. There’s nothing to connect him to the crime, so when he’s visited by police investigating a shriek in the night it should be a formality to convince them of his complete innocence, what with his superior brain and all. But he reckoned without ... The Tell-Tale Heart. Dennis Etchison - Got To Kill Them All: (Cemetery Dance #34, 2001). Bad day for Ray Lowndes, the overworked the star compère of smash hit TV quiz show, Green a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? clone in reverse. The contestant with the most wrong answers walks away with a fortune). Stressed out, pill-popping Ray is suspicious that his wife's endless "hospital visits" to "sick mother" are shorthand for "I am having an affair", and lets on as much to a hitcher who has just been dustbinned by his lover. The hitcher comes around to his way of thinking: all women are cheating bitches and we've got to kill them all. On the promise of a Green appearance, he agrees to help Ray get even .... Have now reached the point where I'm beginning to wonder if there are gonna be any stories I don't much care for - between them, even the Zombie Apocalypse books have a few, and I love the Zombie Apocalypse books ...
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Post by dem on Jan 26, 2014 19:54:03 GMT
"I want to take my time with this one," Ma says. "I want to make her suffer."
Pa laughs. "You really hate the pretty ones, don't you?"Mark Morris - Essence: When the mood is upon them, Ma and Pa, a nice, respectable, middle class, husband and wife serial killer team, spend their evenings in a backstreet pub as nondescript as themselves, patiently awaiting the arrival of their next victim. 'Phyllis' and 'Gerald' (their names for this evening's charade) are dead good at their little hobby. They've been torture-murdering young women for over two decades, and never once drawn suspicion upon themselves. Veronica, a petite student type, nervously enters the doors of The White Hart. She's been stood up by her friend. The kindly couple first win her confidence, then offer a lift home ... Ma savours the prospect of taking a blowtorch to this 'Roni's hair. That will make for a tasty appetizer before the real fun begins. Please let her be a screamer, a pleader, a ... what's taking Pa so long down in the basement? He'd better not have started without her! Michael Kelly - The Beach: Elizabeth still lives in the cottage by the beach where it happened. As a child, dad buried her up to the neck in the sand, teasing her that he was off home now and he would leave her to the gulls. Elizabeth cried, until he dug her out again. "I'd never leave you!" he promised. Except, tragically, he did. Just like Mum, who died giving birth to her. Then came the summer when she fell in love with Matthew. Matthew laughed in her face. Explained that it was just a holiday fling, nothing to get excited about. Adults cannot be trusted. Adulthood is horrible. Better for children that they never grow up.  Boris Dolgov: (Weird Tales, July 1943). If he'd not written Psycho, Robert Bloch may well have been best remembered as "The man who wrote Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper, so hats (heads?) off to, Norman Bates! Not that there's anything remotely 'bad' about Yours Truly - R. Chetwynd-Hayes' The Gatecrasher certainly owes it a favour - but essentially, the great man's breakthrough story is Thomas Burke's The Hands of Mr. Ottermole with knife and novelty black magic accessories. Fifty years after the murder of Mary Kelly, Sir Guy Hollis, criminologist, travels to Chicago on the trail of the Whitechapel fiend. It is his belief that the Ripper is alive, well and still practising his handiwork in the States. John Carmody, psychiatrist (what else?), listens incredulous to his idiot ravings. The way Sir Guy tells it, Jack is a master of Black Sorcery who, through blood sacrifice, has attained eternal youth! The crime-buster is so insistent that the Ripper mixes with the local proto-hippie crowd that Carmody, much amused, agrees to take him along to a wild party ... John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #3: Gosh, Dr. Parrish really took that disparaging newspaper article personally! Still, we expect he's only pretending to be crazy ... Ramsey Campbell - See How They Run: (Robert Bloch [ed.] Monsters In Our Midst, 1993). With the festive season almost upon us, Foulsham sits on the jury at the trial of Fishwick, a five times torture-murderer whose victims include a bully from school-days who'd mocked his gammy leg, and his father, font of all his misery. The man is clearly mentally ill, but Foulsham's fellow good men and true want vengeance. His suggestion that, as Fishwick would never be released from a secure psychiatric hospital they might extend a degree of clemency is met with incredulity, so Foulsham goes with the flow. Fishwick's violence is not restricted to his victims and, sentenced to life imprisonment, he commits spectacular, bloody suicide. As he chokes his last, Foulsham wakes from troubled sleep with a sensation of impending doom. The girls in the office treat him differently, while minor acquaintances feign a renewed interest, fishing for the inside dirt on the trial. It is shaping up to be a miserable Christmas. He's no-one to spend it with, his leg is playing up, and all he can think of is Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick .... Conrad Williams- Manners: An isolated loner, all but forgotten by society, lives on the road-kill he scavenges from the motorway. His frugal existence, inspired in no small way by a boy scouts manual, is not quite as innocent as it sounds.
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Post by dem on Jan 27, 2014 19:38:03 GMT
Christopher Fowler - Bryant & May And The Seven Points: Another terrifying case for Caledonian Road's finest, the Peculiar Crimes Squad. Arthur Bryant and John May's investigation into the disappearance of Michael Portheim, GCHQ officer and master code-buster, leads them to carnival site in Charlton Park and 'Harry Mills's Incredible Arcade of Abnormalities.' It's fat Harry's name on the poster, but no question that Russian dwarf, Andrei 'The Great' Federov, runs the show. Federov has undergone cosmetic surgery to transform his face into that of a horned devil - he's just about the most normal looking chap among an entourage which includes Martitia The Moth Woman, Marvo The Caterpillar Boy and a girl with no head. To the best of the detectives' knowledge, Federov was the last person to see Portheim alive. It transpires that back home, he was jailed for multiple murders, only to be pardoned and compensated by the State. Sergeant Janice Longbright - the PCS's resident bit of glam, poses as a showgirl to penetrate the Arcade, but the dwarf sees straight through her act - she's another of those pesky cops! Fans of Freaks and, come to that, Charles Birkin's The Harlem Horror will appreciate the denouement.
There are a couple of Bryant & May novels among the leaning tower of 'to read's, and The Seven Points has nudged them that bit nearer the top.
Have just spotted a story further down the table of contents that I first met only last year and - shock horror - didn't think much of, but otherwise everything to date has been a treat of Mammoth Book of Werewolf/ Wolf Men/ Zombies/ New Terrors proportion.
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Post by dem on Jan 28, 2014 14:38:13 GMT
Harlan Ellison® - All The Birds Come Home To Roost: (Playboy, March 1979; Karl E Wagner [ed.], Years Best Horror VIII, 1980). I'm not sure if its still legal to comment upon a story when the author becomes an ® but I'm dem ™ (image rights pending), I laugh in the face of death etc, so will take a chance. The rest of you: play it careful. Mike Kirxby, Attorney, has never had difficulty attracting women, though keeping them after the initial excitement is another matter. Such is his blessing, such his curse. Two decades on from that disastrous first marriage to Cindy - a girl so disturbed she was eventually committed to an asylum by her own mother - a chance meeting with Martha, the former Mrs. Kirxby Mk. III, culminates in a joyless for-old-time's-sake fuck, after which he knows he'll not see her again. It is the beginning of a strange and ultimately terrifying chain of events. "Over the next month, in reverse order of having known them, every female with whom he had had a liaison magically reappeared in his life." The pattern is the same with the entire harem. Meet, bed, leave for ever, until there are only three old flames between him and a reunion with - but he mustn't think of that. He does nothing but. Kirxby quits the city, first for Vermont, then St. Kitts, but its no good, the sequence continues. All roads lead back to the maniacal Cindy who almost destroyed him the first time around .... Rio Youers - Wide Shining Light: A school reunion, twenty-five years on. It's unlikely Martin Sallis would have given the invitation a second thought had not wife Lorna left him three weeks earlier. Now the possibility of rekindling old friendships, perhaps even rebooting his life, is too great a lure to resist. And - he gets lucky, or so it seems. Richard Chalk, his best pal from primary through secondary schools, recognises him instantly and it is like the intervening years never happened. With Richard's continued kindness and emotional support, Martin survives the ordeal of protracted and acrimonious divorce. It is not as if Mr. Chalk doesn't have his own heartbreak to contend with, having lost his own wife, Constance, eight years ago. Meanwhile, 'The Chiltern Chopper' continues to strike fear into the hearts of the women of Bucks and Berks. " Moonlight Sonata started to play, a piece I have always loathed, due mainly to it being the one composition that even philistines are familiar with." So Lorna was right all along. Martin really is a "pompous arse" though little could she realise how one day her life would depend upon him .... First i've read of Mr. Youers, and, like the Ellison®, it's top notch stuff. Neil Gaiman - Feminine Endings: (Joshua Knelman & Rosalind Porter [eds.], Four Letter Word: Original Love Letters, Random House, 2008). First met this one only last summer ( Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #20) and - shock horror - didn't think much of it. No matter. Somebody else, and it will be their best of book selection. Told in the form of a love letter. A young woman (or possibly, a transvestite) is unaware she's being stalked by a secret admirer, but then how could she when the besotted is a thirteenth century marble statue? Only now is he/ she/ it finally ready to break cover.
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Post by dem on Jan 29, 2014 19:05:30 GMT
Peter Crowther - Eater: Back on the very trad horror trail. Denny 'Doc' Bannerman is on night duty at the 13th Precinct when they finally bring in Mellor, the outrageously prolific cannibal killer. Now they are separated by steel bars, Doc can't resist a peek at the monster (think a Dahlmer-Gein-Lector hybrid with idiosyncrasies) and - the bastard's dead! Or so it seems. That's when his colleagues on the team - Steinwitz and Gershwin of the disgusting table manners - start acting unlike themselves. Among Mellor's deadly attributes is the ability to commandeer the bodies of those whose hearts he's devoured. A terrified Doc finds himself locked inside the station with a choice of maniacs, each of them salivating at the prospect of feasting on cop. John Llewellyn Probert - Case Conference #4: Stanhope, by now incensed at the posturing of his host, tries playing Parrish at his own game. Suppose he is Mellor, out to avenge himself on the man responsible for his continued incarceration? Parrish smugly responds in kind. Gentlemen, please! This is neither the time nor the place for playground squabbles! Peter Crowther - Mr Mellor Comes To Wayside: We catch up with Mellor adrift in the American countryside, preparing to call on Wilhelmina, "the biggest and fattest woman outside of a Carney sideshow," at the Good Neighbour grocery store. Mellor has just the miracle slimming cure for her. A saw. Michael Marshall - Failure: I've not read any of The Straw Men novels, but thanks to this splendid sampler, I know they are people you disappoint at your peril. Jonathan and Elaine have done their best by their son, and financially, Rudy has made a success of life, quietly progressing through the ranks of the legal profession. But he already has that failed marriage to Maria and a string of bad relationships behind him, this, as his father learns via Maria, due to a fondness for extreme violence in the bedroom. For some years, a serial rapist has stalked the women of Santa Cruz, and Jonathan has reason to suspect his sadistic son. He takes to driving out to The Jury Room pub each night, watching Rudy emerge with a succession of drunken pick-ups. But, unfortunately for both, another party have also put two and two together .... That's The Straw Men on the wanted list then ... Just the three stories to go, and to get us in the mood for the final push, some words from Lord P. (see Constable Robinson July-Dec 2013 thread for context. Ooh, hark at me!). Thanks for posting, Dem - this is the first I've seen of this! (And another title change from THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PSYCHO STORIES and then THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PSYCHO-MANIA). I've done a linking wraparound story like in the Amicus film ASYLUM. It says in the style of Robert Bloch but I like to think it's all me, really - starting and finishing the book and popping up regularly between stories. A bit of a dream project, actually ... .... I was chuffed to be running my framework story out of and into stories by so many of my favourite writers. I think you'll definitely get a good old-fashioned Vault kick out of my bits, Mr D, especially the ending  . The snake-mongoose sparring between the Doctor and the hack reporter have kept things ticking along nicely, and am intrigued as to who - if either - will eventually triumph. More power to your bits, y'worship!
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Post by dem on Jan 30, 2014 10:14:12 GMT
Kim Newman - The Only Ending We Have: .. or 'I was Janet Leigh's body-double in the shower scene.' Yes, we are on the set of Psycho and Hitch is behaving the total wanker, letching over the girls, making cast and crew uncomfortable though, of course, you know better than not to laugh at his humourless, beyond tiresome 'jokes.' Jayne Swallow, cheesecake model turned stand-in, has had enough of his bullying, the endless retakes, the standing around naked for hours at a time. Determined to get even, she drives off the lot with a sack containing something important filched from the set. It's a stormy December night, hardly conducive to a marathon cross-state journey even if she wasn't already shattered, and Hitch has surely discovered the theft and set the police on her by now. The sign outside the cliff-top Motel reads 'Vacancies' .... The set up is brilliant, but once we arrive at the Hacienda Hayslip and meet creepy Arthur and his Ma (she's a cockney), the author maybe plays it too clever-clever for the story's good. Still enjoyed it, though. Richard Christian Matheson - Kriss Kross Applesauce: A chatty, scatty Xmas family letter to all and sundry from Janet Harris. Nothing the least horrific about that! Except it isn't Christmas. And she no longer has a family. RCM's comments in the 'Case Notes' are another highlight. John Llewellyn Probert - Epilogue: A Little Piece Of Sanity: No, even I am not despicable enough to give the game away. Suffice to say, Lord P. provides alternative endings to both Asylum and Robert Bloch's A Home Away From Home, and effortlessly delivers on the promised 'good old-fashioned Vault kick' - in the head. We're still not out of January and am already wondering if i'll enjoy another multiple author anthology quite so much over the remaining eleven months.  Michael ffolkes ( Punch, 1970)
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Post by erebus on Jan 30, 2014 13:36:55 GMT
An excellent, and very helpful summary of the book Dem. Thank You.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jan 30, 2014 21:09:59 GMT
John Llewellyn Probert - Epilogue: A Little Piece Of Sanity: No, even I am not despicable enough to give the game away. Suffice to say, Lord P. provides alternative endings to both Asylum and Robert Bloch's A Home Away From Home, and effortlessly delivers on the promised 'good old-fashioned Vault kick' - in the head. Thanks ever so, Dem! I'm properly pleased the ending worked for you. Good old (and much missed) Joel Lane wrote to me to say the ending properly disturbed him so much (in the right way, of course), that he couldn't sleep afterwards for thinking about it. I was appropriately flattered. And yes - I'm still hugely proud of my involvement with this one - opportunities like that don't come along every day & it was an absolute joy to do, so much so it's had me thinking I really should get on with the next Faculty of Terror / Catacombs of Fear - type book of my own. |
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