This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Tales of Terror
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 771
Words: 306.5K
Synopsis: |
From the Inside Cover & TOC
Be afraid—be very afraid: the master of suspense is serving up 58 bloodcurdling tales for your delectation. These suspenseful stories all appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and in the words of Hitch himself, they “are guaranteed to chill and unnerve.” Bill Pronzini contributes “The Arrowmont Prison Riddle,” Margaret B. Maron has “A Very Special Talent,” Barry M. Malzberg offers “A Home Away from Home,” and Patricia Matthews chronicles “The Fall of Dr. Scourby.” Meet a girl who stalks Jack the Ripper, a clairvoyant writer of newspaper obituaries, a homicidal partygoer in a sanatorium, and a police detective who lives vicariously through the exploits of one of his most notorious suspects: they all populate these frightening pages. Caution: not recommended for late-night reading—except for the very brave!
Includes the following 58 stories:
NEDRA TYRE – Killed by Kindness
JOHN F. SUTER – Just a Minor Offense
ROBERT BLOCH – A Home Away from Home
JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN – Death of a Derelict
BILL PRONZINI – The Arrowmont Prison Riddle
LAWRENCE BLOCK – The Dettweiler Solution
VINCENT McCONNOR – The Whitechapel Wantons
ISAK ROMUN – Cora’s Raid
NELSON DeMILLE – Life or Breath
WILLIAM BRITTAIN – A Private Little War
JOHN LUTZ – Have You Ever Seen This Woman?
BRIAN GARFIELD – Joe Cutter’s Game
JOHN COYNE – A Cabin in the Woods
EDWARD WELLEN – The Long Arm of El Jefe
JACK RITCHIE – Kid Cardula
JAMES HOLDING – Career Man
LIBBY MacCALL – The Perfidy of Professor Blake
HENRY SLESAR – Sea Change
DONALD OLSON – The Blue Tambourine
WILLIAM P. McGIVERN – Graveyard Shift
BORDEN DEAL – A Bottle of Wine
DONALD HONIG – Man Bites Dog
MICHAEL ZUROY – Never Trust an Ancestor
EDWARD D. HOCH – Another War
ALICE SCANLAN REACH – Sparrow on a String
CLAYTON MATTHEWS – The Missing Tattoo
PATRICIA MATTHEWS – The Fall of Dr. Scourby
STEPHEN WASYLYK – The Loose End
FRANK SISK – That So-Called Laugh
MARGARET B. MARON – A Very Special Talent
BETTY REN WRIGHT – The Joker
HELEN NIELSEN – The Very Hard Sell
RON GOULART – The Tin Ear
CHARLOTTE EDWARDS – The Time Before the Crime
BARRY N. MALZBERG – After the Unfortunate Accident
PATRICK O’KEEFE – The Grateful Thief
TALMAGE POWELL – The Inspiration
ROBERT COLBY – Death Is a Lonely Lover
FLETCHER FLORA – The Witness Was a Lady
PAULINE C. SMITH – Scheme for Destruction
MARY BRAUND – To the Manner Born
RICHARD O. LEWIS – Black Disaster
HAL ELLSON – The Marrow of Justice
IRVING SCHIFFER – Innocent Witness
SAMUEL W. TAYLOR – We’re Really Not That Kind of People
HAROLD Q. MASUR – Pocket Evidence
S. S. RAFFERTY – The Death Desk
AL NUSSBAUM – A Left-Handed Profession
THEODORE MATHIESON – Second Spring
ARTHUR PORGES – Bank Night
BRYCE WALTON – The Contagious Killer
GARY BRANDNER – Bad Actor
MICHAEL BRETT – Free Advice, Incorporated
JAMES M. GILMORE – The Real Criminal
WILLIAM DOLAN – The Hard Sell
BOB BRISTOW – The Prosperous Judds
ROBERT W. ALEXANDER – The Dead Indian
AUGUST DERLETH – The China Cottage
My Thoughts: |
There is another anthology that was titled the same but was put together directly by Hitchcock and only had 12-14 stories. This was put together by some chick name Eleanor Sullivan. Good for her.
Overall I enjoyed this quite a bit and thought it was on track to be a solid 4star read. I only saw 2 or 3 stories that I’d read in some of his other collections and with 58 stories thought that was pretty good! Then came the last story, a Pons and Parker story. And Bancroft Pons, Solar’s older, smarter and fatter brother is introduced. It was too much. Solar Pons is a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes and I think it is terribly done. I wish I had never read any of the Pons and Parker stories by Derleth.
The book’s first story was the perfect opener though. A husband and wife are both having an affair and want to kill off the other because divorce would just destroy the other spouse, who lives and breathes to please the other. No need to be mean, just off them and everyone will be happy. Of course, they end up killing each other and it was PERFECT! It was exactly what I would expect from a story edited by Hitchcock.
The rest of the stories ran the gamut from ok to pretty good with the exception of the last as I mentioned above. This is the 12th Hitchcock anthology I’ve read and I’ve still got 8 more to go. I am loving it!
I would knock this down at least a full star for not having one of those classic Hitchcock covers.
LikeLiked by 3 people
This cover was indeed boring. No verve at all…
LikeLiked by 2 people
771 pages? That’s a lot.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is a lot. Definitely going to help bump up my numbers by the end of the month 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bloodcurling tales sound perfect for the approach of Halloween! 😉
LikeLiked by 3 people
I guess I got lucky 😀
LikeLiked by 2 people
Damn dude, it took me 2 and a half months to get through my last book that was 542 pages and you just dust this one of in a few sittings?
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’m a reading machine, what can I say? 😀
LikeLiked by 3 people
Say no more i believe you🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Glad this one worked for you Booky!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yeah, it was a good read….
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve heard of the Pons and Parker stories – glad to know I should steer clear of them if I ever run across any.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I did a little reading up on them. Apparently when Doyle killed off Sherlock somebody else wanted to write more Sherlock stories but Doyle said no. So this guy created Solar Pons and Dr Parker.
I guess there are a LOT of P&P stories. Who knew?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s funny they came up in this collection; I have a Tales of Terror anthology but it’s put together by Arthur Conan Doyle. Something tells me Pons and Parker won’t be in the table of contents. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahahahaa! I doubt it very much 😀
I have read another 1 or 2 P&P stories in these Hitchcock collections, so Hitchcock at least didn’t think they were crap.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad to hear how much you enjoy these anthologies. Nothing to do with this review but, I recently wanted to read some of my past Amazon Kindle ebook purchases on something other than a Kindle. Do you have any clue how to make it so or am I doomed to read them on the Kindle (or app)? 😮
LikeLiked by 1 person
Are the books stored in your amazon store? If so, here’s what you need to know. (more data at the end)
1) Install calibre from:
https://calibre-ebook.com/download
2) Install the no-drm plugin from:
https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
3) download k4pc or email me for a 1.17 version
4) download the books from amazon to k4pc. Then add those books to calibre and no-drm will do its thing. Then calibre can convert those files into whatever format you need.
I realize that’s a LOT of info and things to do. If you need more help, email me at protonmail or go to https://www.mobileread.com/
It’s a lot of work to get setup, but once you’ve got it running, it takes almost zero upkeep.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see. Thanks for the info! It’s a bit sad that Amazon has this monopoly over ebooks for most of us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just so you know, the drm (what keeps you from being able to read any ebook on any device you want) is put in place by the publishers. It definitely benefits amazon too though.
And that’s why the tools I mention are so important. Your ebooks should truly be yours. If you’re really interested, we can take this one step at a time and get things setup. Then you’re good to go for years and years.
LikeLiked by 1 person