In this collection Belinda Frisch brings together an excellent set of short, economical and well-crafted horror tales. These range from the odd through to the strange and on to the outright horrific. Most contain a twist ending of one type or another, which are signalled earlier in the tale – half the “fun”, however, is how we arrive at the final denouement. Although the stories were all good, it may be that a number could have benefited from being a touch longer and have a bit more characterisation – some of the tales may have had more “bite” if we’d known the characters that bit more. That’s a minor quibble, however, for what is an immensely enjoyable collection. If I had to pick favourites I would probably go with “Bitter” (which demonstrates the danger of taking the law into your own hands no matter how appealing and justified it may be) and “The Airman” (an eerie little tale of a haunted airfield and an airman who is looking for some explosive revenge). The full story listing is as follows:
The Fence
The Deal
Bitter
Crow
The Airman
Jinn
The Look-alike ( )