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Post by dem bones on Jan 9, 2024 18:50:41 GMT
John Gawsworth [ed.] - Thrills: Twenty Specially Selected New Stories of Crime, Mystery and Horror (Associated Newspapers, 1936)  Norman Keene
Thomas Burke - The Golden Gong
Charles Duff - The Haunted Bungalow
John Gawsworth - How It Happened
Herbert de Hamel - The Unnecessary Undoing of Mr. Purgle
Kenneth Hare - Twopence for the Toll
Edgar Jepson- The Murder at the Fossicker's Club
Edgar Jepson - An Accident
Philip Lindsay - Act of God
John Lindsey - Blackmail
Anthony M. Ludovici - A Modern Delilah
G. R. Malloch - The Vicar's Crime
Francis Marsden - Madrilene
E. H. W. Meyerstein - The Divorce
R. Edison Page - Fifty Thousand Pounds
R. Edison Page - The Kidnapped Collector
Fytton Armstrong & M. P. Shiel - A Case for Deduction
'Simon' - The Count
L. A. G. Strong - The Shop on the Corner
E. H. Visiak - The Cutting Another of Gawsworth's anonymously edited detective/mystery/supernatural/horror compilations, frequently sampled by Hugh Lamb by this being one of the more crime orientated. How it Happened and The Haunted Bungalow are familiar from Lamb's The Thrill of Horror and Forgotten Tales of Horror respectively (the Duff reappears in Peter Haining's Poltergeist!). Visiak's The Cutting is bleakly hilarious. Oswell Blakeston - The Mysterious Fluid: A weird detective story. The narrator and his friend, Dr. Currie, the mesmerist, know for sure the ghastly Manning murdered his invalid wife, but how to prove it? Currie hits on the .... solution. Thomas Burke - The Golden Gong: Tommy, a shy English boy, falls in love with the beautifully decorated shop in Mr. Foo's 'Ali Baba's cave' of a junk shop on Limehouse Causeway. Tommy's aching need for someone to love summons Sung Sing, an enchantingly beautiful Chinese girl only he can see. A first love haunts a lifetime. E. H. Visiak - The Cutting: Asopus, the maniac headmaster of Cithaeron House, a Norfolk prep school, prepares his pupils for adulthood by pitching them against one another in competitive 'sports,' the objective of which is the torture, scalding, mutilation and cremation of their opponents. "The boy is not only father to the man in my school; he is the man. Why, you might send them out to the trenches at once." Needless to say, conscientious objectors are despised and persecuted as beastly funks by their peers. A press cutting from June 1817 warns in advance that all will end in catastrophe. Thank you, Sam. Apologies for delay. Could have sworn Roger Pile left a thread for this one ... evidently not.
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 9, 2024 19:07:24 GMT
Could this be what you're thinking of?
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Post by dem bones on Jan 9, 2024 19:28:38 GMT
Could this be what you're thinking of?
No, I'm aware of that one, Swampi. Think I may have ransacked it for a few advent calendar stories. Maybe it was on the old board - I distinctly remember Rog/ Cal posting the cover as I'd not previously seen it. |
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Post by sadako on Jan 9, 2024 19:30:49 GMT
I’ve got this volume, but was probably hoping it was a Charles Birkin when I bought it. Good to find out who the editor is though!
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Post by dem bones on Feb 9, 2024 18:03:20 GMT
Simon [Roger Burford & Oscar Blakeston] - The Count: As I fell asleep that night I had the most ridiculous ideas. "Supposing," whispered some idiotic and drowsy section of my subconscious, "the windows are left open so that the Count can enter? Dracula was a count, wasn't he?" Then, as I drifted further towards oblivion, I thought, "What a thing to do to one's host—to drive a stake through his heart! And does even a stake through the heart keep a vampire quiet? Wasn't there the girl of Lewin who, when exhumed, was found to have chewed and swallowed one half of her face-cloth, which, on being pulled out of her throat, showed stains of blood. Wasn't a stake, therefore, driven through her breast? But didn't that wretched creature then walk abroad with the stake in her hand and kill quite a number of people with this formidable weapon?"
A mysterious Spanish aristocrat leaves his villa open to travellers, allowing them to stay as his guest for as long as their conscience allows. All that he asks in return is to be left alone. Mr Homer George, American nosey parker, who regards the Count's refusal to meet him as an insult, persuades the narrator to accompany him on a midnight pry in their host's room. A disastrous move. The Count is a scientist whose private quarters include a laboratory where he has successfully isolated Bacillus Infernalus, "Evil in a microbe!" George's fatal escape attempt leaves his reluctant accomplice at the mercy of a sadistic madman. Another Thriller maybe worthy of revival. I'm guessing the excellent Mr 'Blakeston' was responsible for the gore content.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 10, 2024 14:14:58 GMT
A pair of conte cruel's and an understated ghost story, all three grim in their way. The Gawsworth is great.  Norman Keene: Stanley Barton loved Margery, but that was before she went with his hated, handsome brother; that was before she laughed when brother sneered; "He ought to have more pride than to hang about when he's not wanted; oughtn't he Margery. Now he hated them both. Now he'd prove to them who was the better man. Philip Lindsay - Act of God: An unnamed Caribbean island. Jenny has finally made up her mind to abandon husband Tom to his alcoholism, take the ship home to England with her lover, Harry Grace. Creeping from the house, she walks out into a pitch black 'fog' and a terrified people groping their way in darkness, urging repentance now the End is upon us. Judgement Day! Jenny turns back, confesses her infidelity to a sober Tom, who in turn begs her forgiveness for all the times he has treated her "rottenly, filthily." Captain Grinsby, an amateur scientist, irritably chides them to pull themselves together, there is no cause for alarm; the sky is simply thick with volcanic dust from an eruption on Trinidad. The contrite couple bless God for this second chance. But ... Kenneth Hare - Twopence for the Toll: 'The Old Toll Inn'. When his beloved wife suffers a fatal stroke, father, fifteen years her senior, informs his daughters that he is not much longer for this world; "When she wants me, she'll come." One night during a rainstorm he steps out on the Fens as though in trance. She's come. |
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