Short Story Wednesday: Two Books of Horror and Strange Stories

  

Today I am sharing two of my husband's short story books, which lean toward the strange and the weird. Normally these are not the sort of stories I prefer, but I think I will be trying some stories from both of these in the future.

Nightmare Flower 
Stories by Elizabeth Engstrom
Introduction by Lisa Kröger

Description from the back of the book:

This collection of eighteen short tales, a novelette and a short novel takes the reader inside the dark imagination of Elizabeth Engstrom, author of acclaimed horror classics like When Darkness Loves Us. 

In these stories, you will read about a woman asked to be complicit in her own mother’s death, a grandmother with a macabre hobby, a bizarre, phallic-shaped flower that portends evil for a married couple, a father whose son is caught up in a sinister government experiment. These are weird and unsettling tales that will linger with the reader.

​In her introduction to this new edition, Lisa Kröger writes, “There are true horrors that await readers in all of Engstrom’s works ... reminds me of another giant of horror literature, Shirley Jackson.”

Elizabeth Engstrom is an American author of speculative fiction, who grew up in Illinois and Utah. This book was originally published in 1992 by Tor. Many of the stories in it were published between 1986 and 1991; others were published for the first time in the 1992 Tor edition. 

Scotland the Strange: Weird Tales from Storied Lands
Edited by Johnny Mains

Description from the back of the book:

From misty moors, crags and clifftops comes a hoard of eighteen strange tales gathered by Johnny Mains, award-winning anthologist and editor of the British Library anthology Celtic Weird. Sourced from Scotland’s storied literary heritage and bustling with witches, ghosts, devils and merfolk, this selection celebrates the works of treasured Scottish writers such as John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dorothy K. Haynes and Neil M. Gunn alongside rare pieces by lesser-known authors – including two tales translated from Scots Gaelic.

Brooding in the borderlands where strange folklore, bizarre mythology and twentieth-century hauntings meet, this volume promises chills and shivers as keen and fresh as the wind-whipped wilds of Scotland.

The stories in Scotland the Strange were published between 1818 and 1976. Each story is preceded by one or more paragraphs about the author. 

Here is a list of the stories and authors in Scotland the Strange:

• The Hunt of Eildon / James Hogg
• The Murder Hole / Catherine Sinclair
• The Doom of Soulis & The Seven Lights / John Mackay Wilson
• The Devil of Glenluce / Eliza Lynn Linton
• The Cavern of Steenfoll: A Scottish Legend / Wilhelm Hauff, translated by S. Mendel
• Ticonderoga / Robert Louis Stevenson
• "Death to the Head That Wears No Hair!" / David Grant
• The Ghosts of Craig-Aulnaic /Anonymous
• The Stag-Haunted Stream / Mrs. Campbell of Dunstaffnage
• The Two Sisters and the Curse / Translated by Rev. John Gregorson Campbell
• The Outgoing of the Tide / John Buchan
• Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm / Elizabeth W. Grierson
• Black-Haired John of Lewis, Sailor / Translated by Rev. James MacDougall
• The Moor / Neil M. Gunn
• Good Bairns / Dorothy K. Haynes
• The Lass with the Delicate Air / Eileen Bigland
• The Inheritance / Simon Pilkington
• The Curse of Mathair Nan Uisgeachan / Angus Wolfe Murray

Short Story Wednesday: Three Witnesses by Rex Stout

 

In January I read "Die Like a Dog," a novella featuring Nero Wolfe. It was published in Three Witnesses in 1956. This month I read the other two novellas in that book.

It has been awhile since I read these two stories. I was pleased to find that they were both entertaining, with interesting premises. 

For a brief introduction to the series of books and novellas:

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. They live in a New York brownstone, where Nero Wolfe has his office.

"The Next Witness"

Nero Wolfe has been called by the prosecution as a witness in a murder trial. A man has been accused of murdering a switchboard operator who worked at a telephone answering service. While sitting in the courtroom waiting to be called and listening to the questioning of other witnesses, Wolfe decides that it is possible that the man is not guilty. He abruptly leaves the courtroom with Archie Goodwin, his secretary/assistant/investigator. This puts them both in contempt of court, so they have to avoid the police while pursuing an independent investigation. The steps they take in order to prove Wolfe's hypothesis are engaging and fruitful.

Nero Wolfe is well known for his extreme distaste for leaving his home. He is also afraid of riding in cars (or any other mode of transportation, actually). In this case, he spends all of his time away from home hiding from the police, either in the courtroom, interviewing witnesses, or staying in the apartment of one of his freelance operatives.

"When a Man Murders"

Carolyn Karnow's first husband, Sidney, was declared MIA a few months after the Army sent him to Korea.  After a few years she married Paul Aubry. Six months later, Sidney Karnow shows up in New York, which means that Carolyn and Paul are no longer legally married. They go to Nero Wolfe to ask him to intercede with Karnow to give Carolyn a divorce. Carolyn inherited a substantial amount of money from Sidney when he was declared dead; she plans to return as much of the money as she can if he will agree to a divorce.

Archie goes to Sidney Karnow's hotel to talk to him, but when Archie arrives at his room, he finds Karnow's dead body instead. Shortly after that, the police arrest Paul Aubry for the crime, and Wolfe and Archie are looking  around for the real culprit.

Diving into the Wreck: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

This book is in the science fiction genre, and the diving referred to in the title is diving into wrecked space ships, not ships at the bottom of an ocean. Which might be obvious if you can get a close enough look at the cover. My son loaned me this book and encouraged me to read it, and I am so glad that he did.

The protagonist in this story is a woman who makes her living diving into derelict ships out in space. She is always referred to as Boss. No other name is ever given. She is a loner; she knows a lots of people who work in the same business as she does, and she works with crew members who have skills in diving or technology. But she seems to have no real friends. Boss has had a hard life and has developed a hard shell over her emotions because of it.

Sometimes she goes on salvage operations to bring in some money, but her real love is history and she likes to study the ships. She also takes out groups of tourists to give them the experience of wreck diving in space. One day, when Boss is returning from a salvage mission, she sees a blip on her ship's sensors that leads to a strange ship – a ship that is obviously ancient and possibly very, very dangerous. 

The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Boss hires a crew to dive into the ancient ship and find out what is there. She has suspicions that this is a ship that came from earth and could be dangerous, but she does not tell her crew this. She wanted to get verification from them without prejudicing them beforehand. However, once they arrive at the abandoned ship, some of the crew are angry that they were not warned, and one woman, Squishy, is scared so badly that she wants them to abandon the dive and return home. During one of the dives, a crew member has to be abandoned in the ship. That incident is the beginning of more adventures related to the ancient ship. 

My thoughts:

I liked the writing style. It was spare, and there was a lot of dialog at times. But the pace was good and it kept me interested. The first two parts of the book were first published as novellas previously but changes were made for this publication. Each of the three parts is about a separate expedition (although they all tie in to the discovery of the ancient ship); for me the transitions between the three parts worked well. And I liked that I could stop easily between each one. 

The characterization is good, but since the story is first person narration from Boss's point of view, we only know what she thinks and feels. Several of the secondary characters that work on Boss's crews are portrayed in depth; there is a good depiction of an old cynical military man later in the story. 

The world building is done well. The story is set far into the future, in the Enterran Empire. The planet Boss lives on is Hector Prime, which is on the edge of the empire, near the Nine Planets Alliance. Boss is a citizen of the Enterran Empire, but her sympathies lie with the Nine Planets Alliance. Beyond that there is not a lot of dwelling on the science involved. Other reviewers who are more in the know than I am about science fiction say that this is a novel that people who are new to science fiction can enjoy. 

There are 18 books in this series at this point and I plan to look for more of them to read.

Please see another review at Carl's blog, Stainless Steel Droppings. Carl was the original host for the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge (and also the Science Fiction Experience Challenge and the Once Upon a Time Challenge).

Scene of the Crime: Margot Kinberg

 

Scene of the Crime is the fifth novel in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams series. The setting is academia; the protagonist is a college professor in Tilton University’s Department of Criminal Justice. Joel is not a policeman but he was in the past, and he has ties to the police department. Thus, the books are part academic mystery and part police procedural. I have read the four previous books in the series and this was another good one.

As this book opens, a waitress finds a body behind Maggie's Diner, a popular eatery near the campus. Coincidentally, Joel and his wife are going into the diner for brunch at the same time, and a group of students have been holding a protest in front of the diner.

In addition to Joel Williams, there are three distinct sets of characters: students at the university, people connected with the campaign to reelect State Representative Doug Kauffman, and the investigating team from the Tilton police.

Joel Williams is working on a study regarding alternative schools, specifically high schools for students who have had problems in standard high schools. Part of the study involves interviewing students who attended alternative high schools and then went on to college; several of the students involved in the death at the diner were part of his study.

Since Joel is a former policeman, he cannot help but be interested in a crime that occurs in the town of Tilton. The victim was in the study, and other students involved in the study are involved. Joel becomes more directly involved when one student approaches him because he fears that he is a suspect.

The solution was a surprise for me, but it made sense.

 

My thoughts:

The pacing is good and there are no dull spots. The plot is well thought out with plenty of possible suspects, but not so many characters that things get confusing.

The characters are fleshed out well. The two main detectives investigating the crime are professional and each has their own view of the situation; they work well together. I liked the mix of students that were described. Some of them were students from Joel’s study and had come to college from alternative high schools. Some were protesters who were unhappy about State Representative Kauffman and his stance on giving less funding to education and more to law and order. Most were working or dependent on scholarships or both.

The story does have a focus on politics and funding for education vs funding for police departments. Of course, Joel Williams has sympathy with both sides because he has worked in both areas. The issues are explored as they affect the various groups, but the book does not get preachy at any time. 

This story was a pleasure to read. It was never boring, and I was glad to hear more about Joel Williams. The books are not formulaic; each of the books has a different focus within an educational setting.

 

Also see the excellent review at FictionFan's Book Reviews.

Margot Kinberg has an interesting and informative blog where she shares information about mysteries, both vintage and contemporary. Please check out Margot’s blog.

-----------------------------

Publisher:  Grey Cells Press, 2024.
Length:      266 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:       Joel Williams #5
Setting:      Pennsylvania, USA
Genre:       Mystery
Source:      I purchased this book.

Fall from Grace: L.R. Wright

 

The Prologue opens in Spring 1980. Several friends are attending the high school graduation of Bobby Ransome, a young man who was graduating several years late due to problems in his earlier years. The second part of the prologue takes place ten years later, in the summer of 1990, when Bobby has returned from several years in prison for dealing drugs. Bobby joins his ex-wife, Wanda, and her family for dinner, much to the dismay of her current husband, Warren. Bobby's return has caused some excitement and some dismay around the small town of Sechelt. 

A few weeks later, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Karl Alberg is out sailing with his lover Cassandra when they see the body of a man on the beach. It turns out that he had fallen from a cliff above. The dead man was Steven Grayson, who grew up in Sechelt but has been living in Vancouver for the last ten years. 

The story is told from multiple perspectives (Karl Alberg's, Cassandra's, the various members of the community that are affected by the death and by Bobby's return). At the same time that Cassandra and Karl are continuing to figure out their relationship, one of Karl's daughters is visiting for the summer and working part-time for the local newspaper. And Karl is dealing with the fact that his ex-wife is getting married again.

My thoughts:

As usual, the characters in this story are very well-drawn. This is the fourth book in the Karl Alberg series and I have found most of the books to be more of a character study than a mystery. And I like them that way.

The setting and the atmosphere are lovely. Sechelt is a real-life seaside community on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, northwest of Vancouver. As described below...

   On the Sunshine Coast that year, summertime was long and hot and dusty, and the world smelled of raspberries and roses.

   For weeks the sky remained utterly clear, and the air was hot and still.

   The waters that lapped at the western shoreline were such a deep blue they looked as if they might stain the skin. The nearer islands near the Strait of Georgia were etched fine and clear, every tree and every rock sharp-edged; the islands somewhat farther away were soft dark shapes against the sky; the most distant islands were purple shadows in the far-reaching sea.

I continue to enjoy this series and I am surprised each time at the themes the author covers and the different approaches she takes to each novel.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Felony & Mayhem, 2010. Orig. pub. 1991.
Length:  275 pages
Format:  Trade paperback
Series:   Karl Alberg #4 
Setting:  Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada
Genre:   Mystery, Police Procedural

Six Degrees of Separation: From Prophet Song to Rachel's Holiday

  

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I have not read that book, but from what I gather it is a dystopian novel set in Ireland and written by an Irish author. That novel follows one woman trying to keep her family together as the country moves towards totalitarianism. This sounds like a very good book and I may want to read it some day. 

The books that I have linked to for my Six Degrees chain are all set primarily in Ireland, and are written by Irish authors. 

1st degree:

My first link is to an Irish crime fiction book on my TBR pile – Winterland by Alan Glynn. From the book dust jacket: "The worlds of business, politics and crime collide in contemporary Dublin when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night - one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That's the official version of events. But when a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions, this notion quickly unravels."

2nd degree:

Winterland can be described as dark and gritty, and that leads me to The Guards, the first of the Jack Taylor novels written by Ken Bruen. The series is set in Galway, Ireland. Jack Taylor was in the Garda Síochána (the police force of the Republic of Ireland), and thrown out because of serious problems with alcohol. He becomes, almost accidentally, a finder, a sort of private detective. One element of the writing is frequent mentions of books, especially mystery novels, and quotes interspersed here and there, often with no apparent connection to the story.  The mystery portion of the plot is slight. The emphasis is more on Jack, his relationships, his life, his battle with alcohol. It isn't a happy book, but it isn't depressing either.

3rd degree:

Like The Guards, the The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black is more of a character study than a mystery. And beautifully written. Set in Ireland in the 1950s, it is the 2nd book about Quirke, a pathologist working in a hospital in Dublin. Deirdre Hunt died and the assumption is that it was suicide; Quirke suspects that this is not correct, so he spends some time looking into her death. Dierdre also went by the name Laura Swan and ran a beauty salon, The Silver Swan. In looking into Deirdre's death, Quirke discovers that his daughter Phoebe has some connections to that salon also, and he becomes more interested. After reading this book, I was hooked on the series.

4th degree:

Benjamin Black is a pseudonym used by John Banville for some of his crime fiction books. In 2020, John Banville published Snow, set in Ireland in 1957. The Catholic Church is powerful in Ireland at that time. Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been sent to County Wexford to investigate the death of a priest, found dead in the home of a well-known Protestant family. DI Strafford is also Protestant, an unusual occurrence in the Garda. He finds himself in an uncomfortable position, isolated in the small community by the accumulating snow and getting little cooperation from the family or the townspeople. 

 

5th degree:

My next link also involves Garda detectives. The Secret Place is the 5th book in the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French. It is set in a girl's boarding school and the investigation takes place in one day. Holly Mackey, daughter of a policeman and student at St. Kilda's, brings a new piece of evidence related to the death of a teenage boy to Stephen Moran, a detective in the Cold Cases division who would really rather be in the Murder Squad. Stephen takes the information to Detective Antoinette Conway in the Murder Squad. They pursue the investigation. Tana French's mysteries are very good, but none end happily, and they usually leave me a bit down.

6th degree:

To be honest, most of the books in my chain are dark and bleak. For my last link, I am switching to the opposite. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes is from my TBR pile. One Goodreads review described it as "dark, depressive, and sad" which is strange for a book categorized mainly as chick lit. Although the story is about a woman who returns to her home town of Dublin and goes into rehab for drug addiction, I believe this is handled with humor and wit. It is the 2nd book in the Walsh Family series; I read Watermelon and liked it, so I am expecting to like this one too, although it is close to 600 pages long.

In my Six Degrees I stayed in Ireland, although two of the books do go back to the 1950s.  If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

Have you read any of these books or authors?

The next Six Degrees will be on April 5, 2025, and the starting book will be Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Knife.