Short Story Review: “Invisible” by Nancy Kilpatrick

“Invisible” by Nancy Kilpatrick
From The Devil’s Coattails edited by Jason Brock and William F. Nolan
Cycatrix Press, 2011

Horror stories are more often than not filled with things unseen. Ghosts, the past, regrets, the threat just around the corner – these are things with no tangible presence, yet they can have a very tangible effect on people.

In “Invisible,” Nancy Kilpatrick examines the ways we find to make the people around us disappear, reducing them to an intangible presence in the hopes of minimizing their impact on us. Sometimes it’s someone considered “beneath us,” a person performing some menial task for us like bringing our food to the table and refilling our coffee cup. Other times it’s someone who needs – or needed – our help.

“Invisible” is also a story about the staggering weight of grief and loss, two other things we might wish we could make disappear. Perhaps we can deny it attention, just as we look away from some people, but these  are things that won’t be denied. Grief and loss have a way of weighing you down whether you acknowledge it or not.

“Invisible” is a quiet, contemplative piece. Kilpatrick teases us through the story with a mounting sense of dread that builds to a subdued but effective payoff. It’s easily one of the most memorable and effective stories in this collection.

More reviews from The Devil’s Coattails.

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*

Hill and Rodriguez to bring the Keyhouse down with two-part ‘Locke & Key’ finale

Over the past six years or so, writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have been crafting one of the finest comic series on the shelves - Locke & Key. I’ve not been shy about professing my appreciation for their work in the past, and I’m anxious to see how they wrap up this intricate, intimate story of a family haunted by demons of both the internal and hellishly external natures.

The series is currently in the middle of its concluding arc, Locke & Key: Omega, and it’s killing me because I wait for the nice hardback collections to come out so I have no idea at this point what’s going on. And now comes along this news, which is great because it means we get just a little bit more Locke & Key than was originally planned, but awful because now we have to wait just a bit longer to see how everything plays out.

While adding an extra issue may scream “cash grab” to some, it’s clearly not the case here. Hill gives me the impression of being a guy who is all about the integrity of the story, first, last and always, so if this is the space they need to tell the ending, then I’m glad they are getting it.

Hill has also promised that, while this is the definitive end to the story of the Locke family, there are still more stories to tell involving the rambling Victorian mansion known as Keyhouse.

Can. Not. Wait.

Review: ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ by Max Allan Collins

From its lurid cover (another stellar effort by Hard Case Crime regular Glen Orbik) to its over-the-top title and scandalous premise, Seduction of the Innocent would appear to be a book as extreme as the comics that figure heavily in its plot.

It’s not. And while that may be something of a letdown it’s a forgivable one, because what you get instead is a solid murder mystery and a fascinating peek into one of the most controversial and misguided smear campaigns in American history.

Author Max Allan Collins uses Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 crusade against comics as the framework for this novel, which he named after Wertham’s own book. (That book, mocked for decades, was recently thoroughly debunked and discredited.) Many of the more sensational elements of Collins’s story – congressional hearings on the evils of comics, mob ties to the funnybook business, drunken brawls and suicidal creators – are based on actual events that took place during that time, and many of its characters are based on real-life players in that saga.

In addition to these historical figures, Collins brings in a couple of his own creations – Jack Starr and his stepmother, Maggie, previously featured in the novels A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder. Like Seduction, the previous Starr books lift their plots from real stories of the early days of comics (think ripped-off artists and feuding creators), making this the third chapter in a loose history of the medium.

The Starrs aren’t in the comic book business; rather, their company, Starr Syndicate, places comic strips in newspapers all over the country. Maggie runs the company, but Jack’s job may be the more difficult one – given that the artists are a moody lot, it’s Jack’s job to head off trouble when he can, and to extricate his talent from their messes when he can’t.

The Starrs’ comic strip business is deeply intertwined with the comic book business, so when a prominent player in the growing controversy stirred by Dr. Werner Frederick’s book Ravage the Lambs ends up dead, Jack finds himself embroiled in an investigation that encompasses several of his associates. The death doesn’t occur until halfway through the book, but Collins uses the ample lead time to flesh out the characters and lay out some of the fascinating and complicated inner workings of the comic book industry. The rest of the novel is spent shadowing Jack as he tries to find out who committed the murder and how he might minimize the effect it has on his company and the business overall.

While you don’t have to be a fan of comics or a student of that particular era of the business to enjoy Seduction, those who meet that criteria are going to find an extra layer of goodness in its pages. It’s hard to imagine society reaching that level of hysteria in today’s climate (well, in relation to comics, anyway, since comics, like all things geek, are in vogue these days), but Collins draws a vivid portrait of the uproar the country was in at the time – an uproar efficiently whipped up by one man and a handful of carefully manipulated “facts.” Into this he mixes an intriguing murder mystery and a colorful cast of characters. The result is thoroughly entertaining page-turner, and another win for Hard Case Crime.

Review: ‘More Than Midnight’ by Brian James Freeman

Brian James Freeman is one of those writers that someone, some day, is going to call an “overnight success,” completely ignorant of the fact that the guy has been pounding a keyboard for years, honing his craft and developing his voice the way all good writers do.

I say this because Freeman’s 2010 novella The Painted Darkness brought him all kinds of attention, and he seems poised to be one of those “next big things.” That’s what happens when guys like Richard Matheson and David Morrell rave about your stuff – people start looking to see what you’re going to do next. What Freeman has done is offer us a peek at the earlier stages of his career with More Than Midnight, a collection of five previously-published short stories now available from Cemetery Dance. While the stories themselves may not be as transcendent as The Painted Darkness, they’re full of the kind of pulpy goodness that we just don’t get enough of these days.

Take, for example, “Pulled Into Darkness,” my personal favorite of the collection. Freeman gives us the classic setup of a stalk-n-slash movie: A man and his young daughter in an isolated house on a stormy night. On the television, news of a riot at a nearby mental health facility, the very same facility where the man’s wife (the daughter’s mother) has been locked up for allegedly trying to kill her family. Now she’s on the loose, leaving a trail of bodies behind her…and the power just went out…

Think you know where it’s going? Think again. Freeman takes the obvious conclusion and deftly twists it on its head. Granted, seasoned readers of horror fiction will likely spot the twist coming, but by giving us two possible scenarios Freeman keeps us guessing right up to the last page.

You get the sense that Freeman was having a ball writing these, telling his own little campfire tales and hoping they’d find an audience. His enjoyment is infectious – just try reading the scene in “Among Us” when the mysterious bosses of a giant law firm begin undressing and intoning “Join Us!” in front of a batch of newly-minted partners without relishing the realization that things are about to go bad for someone. These stories are full of little moments like that, and if you’re like me you’ll enjoy every one.

I have one suggestion for those able to snag a copy – don’t read these stories in the order they are presented in the book. Take a look instead at the copyright page and read them in the order they were originally published. What you’ll get is a glimpse of a young writer gleefully playing with everything the genre has to offer while laying the foundation for what’s likely to be a highly successful career.

I can’t let the review end without giving a tip of the hat to the illustrations of Glenn Chadbourne, whose insanely detailed black-and-white drawings serve as the perfect punctuation marks at the end of these stories. Top it all off with a mesmerizing cover by Vincent Chong and you’ve got a total package that’s well worth hunting up.

2012: The Year in Reading

Overall, 2012 was a great year for me and the written word. I read a lot of books (you can see a list of them all here) and, most importantly, I enjoyed the overwhelming majority of them. I got new books by favorites like King and Barker, and discovered new voices like Adam Cesare that I’m excited about following into the future. Here, countdown-style, were my ten favorite books of 2012. I should point out that not all of them were published in 2012 – I give books I read for the first time a chance to make that year’s list no matter when they were published. I reviewed a good many of these and have provided links to those reviews if you’d like to read more about why they made the Top 10. The short answer is these are the books that thrilled me, surprised me, impressed me, and stayed with me.

As always, the comments are open and I’d love to hear what your favorite books of 2012 were, or how wrong I was to include some of these and what an idiot I am to have excluded others. Who knows? Maybe we’ll introduce each other to one (or more) of our favorite reads of 2013.

Now, without further ado, my favorites of the year that was…..

10. Kinsmen by Bill Pronzini

9. Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

8. Abarat Book Two: Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker

7. Abarat Book Three: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker

6. Video Night by Adam Cesare

5. The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

4. The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli

3. This Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs

2. The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins

1. Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale

Kealan Patrick Burke brings down The Curtain on Timmy Quinn with NEMESIS

Concluding a series must be one of the most difficult things a writer can do – especially a series that’s been as popular for a writer as the Timmy Quinn stories (comprised up to this point of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, and Peregrine’s Story) have been for Kealan Patrick Burke. Not only have they been popular for him, they have in many ways defined his career: from the hot-shot indie writer making a splash among those “in the know” with The Turtle Boy, to the growing artist tackling more complex themes in Vessels, to the mature author back from a long absence with new confidence and mastery of his craft as displayed in Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn.

Many of the series I’m familiar with as a reader are open-ended, like the Hap and Leonard books by Joe R. Lansdale. Series such as these are more about the ongoing growth and development of the characters than a single storyline, and therefore are free of the pressure to give readers a definitive, cover-all-the-bases conclusion. For those writers who face wrapping up multiple books’ worth of interconnected storylines, I imagine the pressure is immense. J.K. Rowling had to be on pins and needles waiting on fan reaction to her last Harry Potter book. Stephen King was inundated for years with fan requests – demands, really – for a proper end to the Dark Tower series, and has been subjected to various degrees of second-guessing ever since he delivered the final chapter.

I don’t know how much external pressure Burke felt in writing the final Timmy Quinn book, but I believe the pressure he likely put on himself was more than enough. Fan feelings aside, this was a book Burke wanted to get right.

In my opinion, he did.

In Nemesis, Burke manages the precarious balancing act of not only tying together the threads from the previous books, but also introducing a number of new elements to the mix. He’s working on a much larger scale than in any of the previous Timmy Quinn books – larger, in fact, than anything he’s done up to this point. Where in the past Burke has struggled a bit with large casts and larger-scale stories, this time it’s clear that his craft has caught up with his ambition.

I’m not going to go into a plot description here. Not only do I want to avoid spoilers, but I also feel that if you’re interested in reading this review you’re probably already invested in the series. If not, I’d recommend that you start at the beginning – although Burke does a good job of bringing readers up to speed, it’s going to take more than a passing familiarity with the series to truly appreciate the scope of events that happens in Nemesis.

All along, this series has been about much more than the surface idea of a young man cursed with the ability to see the dead. It’s been about fathers and sons, and mothers and sons, and revenge, and fate; all wrapped up in the journey of Timmy Quinn, who has unsuccessfully tried running away from his abilities for most of his life. As Nemesis begins, Timmy is through running, ready to (or, perhaps, resigned to) embrace the destination those abilities have brought him to. Burke jumps back-and-forth in time throughout the narrative, weaving the threads he’s scattered throughout the previous books into a tight, cohesive whole. Yes, there are entirely new characters introduced throughout the book, and new details that haven’t even been hinted at before are brought to light, but each of these additions feels like an organic extension of what’s come before. Never once do you get the feeling that Burke is just trying to fill in plot holes – it all plays out like the carefully orchestrated finale that it should be.

And make no mistake, it is a finale – at least, for Timmy Quinn. What’s great about the book is that, while it delivers on the promise of bringing an end to the Timmy Quinn series, it simultaneously opens up a whole new mythology for Burke to play with in the future. Those looking for a definitive conclusion will be satisfied, while those hoping that Burke wasn’t abandoning the ideas of The Stage, The Curtain and the resurrected dead for good have a lot of hope to hang on to.

The Timmy Quinn Interviews

• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Turtle Boy
• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Hides
• Kealan Patrick Burke on Vessels
• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Turtle Boy: Peregrine’s Tale
• Kealan Patrick Burke on Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn

Catch up on the series with Stage Whispers: The Collected Timmy Quinn Stories

Nemesis is available digitally as well as in a signed, limited edition hardcover from Thunderstorm Books. Thunderstorm is also prepping a deluxe edition of Stage Whispers: The Collected Timmy Quinn Stories that will include Nemesis, which is not included in the current digital edition. Visit Thunderstorm Books for more information.

Essential October Reads: Norm Partridge

It’s become an annual tradition here in October Country to share my Essential October Reads, those works that best capture the essence of the Halloween season for me. This year I’ve asked some of my favorite authors to share their own Essential October Reads with us. 

Today we’re bringing the series to a close with an author whose name you might recognize from some previous entries – Norm Partridge. Norm’s own Dark Harvest has become a perennial Halloween read for many (including myself) since its release, so I was thrilled when he agreed to tell us a little about the book that helps define Halloween for him. 

Before we jump in, I’d just like to thank all of the authors who took time to write about their “Essential October Reads” for us this year. Reading and sharing these has made this a truly special Halloween season for your humble host. Happy Halloween!

When I think of books that spelled O-C-T-O-B-E-R for me as a kid, I always come back to Ghosts Go Haunting by Scorche Nic Leodhas. A collection of Scottish ghost stories, it always gave me a shiver no matter how many times I read it.

Ghosts Go Haunting would often be in my hands on rainy afternoons when I was alone in the house, and it was always part of the menu when Halloween rolled around. Of course, I owned other horror books — a couple of Alfred Hitchcock anthologies produced for the sixties kid’s market, a big stack of Famous Monsters of Filmland, plenty of post-EC horror comics. But none of them got under my skin the way Ghosts Go Haunting did. That one came at me from a different world — and since I was an American kid growing up in the suburbs, that shouldn’t be a surprise. With its “braid Scottish” /Gaelic glossary in the back, and creepily primitive woodcuts that were unsettling in a far different way than the splashy comic book illustrations I was accustomed to, the book set me on unfamiliar ground.

The stories were the great-grandads of the tales my father told on summer nights in the backyard. There were ghosts aplenty, and haunted houses, and coffins that needed carrying. One story in particular, “The Wild Ride in the Tilt Cart,” would set me on edge every time. It was a vanishing hitchhiker tale in reverse, about a kid who’s picked up at a train station one rainy night by a ghostly driver. I can still see the illustration of the cart’s shaggy owner in my mind’s eye, his black eyes on paper gone slightly tan, the heavy beard below that hid all expression and (I was sure) damned up a whisper you’d never want to hear.

I dreamt that story on more than a few October nights, standing in for the main character, waking up in a sweat just as the tale reached its climax. And I’d get pretty much the same reaction reading it while fully awake in a house that seemed full of creaks and whispers on an October afternoon.

I was what they used to call a latchkey kid — both my parents worked, and after school I’d come home to an empty house. Especially around Halloween, without the shackles of adult supervision I’d overdose on horror movies and comics… and Ghosts Go Haunting. I’d read one story. Then I’d read another. Then I’d tell myself: You’d better not read the next one, Norm… but I’d inevitably do the job. My eye would follow that typeface road and nudge me across the next story’s threshold, and before long I’d slap covers closed on the book and shove it deep in a drawer, and I wouldn’t breathe easy until my parents came home.

These days around Casa Partridge, we call those kind of shivers “getting Borley-fied” — a tip of the hat to the old tales about the Borley Rectory that always seemed to raise a chill. When October rolls around, those classic ghost stories still do the trick for me in a way that modern horror never can… and so does Ghosts Go Haunting.

Norm Partridge writes books, short stories and the occasional comic. He’s published suspense, noir, and horror, and he’s not afraid to mix and match the genres when it suits his mood. His classic Halloween novel Dark Harvest was named one of the 100 Best Books in 2006 by Publishers Weekly. His most recent release was a short story collection from Cemetery Dance, Johnny Halloween, which contains a prequel to Dark Harvest.

More Essential October Reads

Essential October Reads: Kealan Patrick Burke

It’s become an annual tradition here in October Country to share my Essential October Reads, those works that best capture the essence of the Halloween season for me. This year I’ve asked some of my favorite authors to share their own Essential October Reads with us. 

Today I’m pleased to welcome Kealan Patrick Burke, award-winning author and editor and a frequent presence here at October Country, writing about a book that’s near and dear to many a dark heart.

I love October, fall, and Halloween. It’s my favorite time of the year and the one time in which nobody gets to turn their nose up at horror (not that they should, ever). Up until a few years ago, I would have said my favorite Halloween read was Something Wicked This Way Comes, for reasons any fan of Bradbury knows well. It’s the quintessential Halloween story, sumptuous, evocative, and moving, and of course, chilling in the way it forces adulthood onto its child protagonists.

But now I have another favorite and it came from left-field. I’ve been a fan of Norman Partridge’s work for almost a decade but he’s at the top of his game with Dark Harvest, a book that transcends horror into modern classic territory. It’s a dark fable, with shades of Jackson and Bradbury, told in an impeccable folksy style that makes it impossible not to read. I love many horror stories, but few linger in the memory as much as this one did. So much so that it has become, like Bradbury’s classic, a perennial favorite.

Kealan Patrick Burke is the author of more than a dozen novels and novellas and more than a hundred short stories. His latest book, Nemesis, is the concluding chapter in the Timmy Quinn series. It’s available now in a limited edition hardcover, and a digital edition will be released on Halloween.

More Essential October Reads

Essential October Reads: Nanci Kalanta

It’s become an annual tradition here in October Country to share my Essential October Reads, those works that best capture the essence of the Halloween season for me. This year I’ve asked some of my favorite authors to share their own Essential October Reads with us. 

Today’s guest, Horror World owner/editor Nanci Kalanta, brings us a list of tales perfectly suited for a chilly autumn evening.

October. The horror world’s favorite month. Ray Bradbury is probably the author most identified with the Halloween season. His many novels are set in the fall, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree (‘natch) and The October Country are three essential fall reads for me.  The opening scene in A Wrinkle In Time has Meg in her attic room listening to a fall storm raging outside her window and a later scene has her walking through the woods with leaves crunching under her feet.  The imagery draws me.

With time in short supply, I sometimes resort to short stories to set the mood for the season.  Cemetery Dance’s short story collection October Dreams and the Halloween novellas in Trick or Treat are just the “trick.”  Re-reading Braunbeck’s “Tessellations,” Hautala’s “Miss Henry’s Bottles,” Monteleone’s “Yesterday’s Child,” Wilson’s “Bucket,” Bradbury’s “Heavy Set” along with authors’ Favorite Halloween Memories set the stage.  Just add a cup of hot cocoa, a warm fire and a howling wind.

Nanci Kalanta is the owner/editor of Horror World.

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Essential October Reads: Brian James Freeman

It’s become an annual tradition here in October Country to share my Essential October Reads, those works that best capture the essence of the Halloween season for me. This year I’ve asked some of my favorite authors to share their own Essential October Reads with us. 

Today we’re joined by author/editor/publisher Brian James Freeman with a look at a haunting tale of loss that he says is perfect for the season.

When I’m asked about Halloween books every October, The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan is the first title that comes to mind, probably because it’s the one book I will read each and every year.

Stewart O’Nan is one of the best writers working today. From his first collection (In The Walled City) and his first novel (Snow Angels), I was hooked. He’s successful with everything he decides to write including non-fiction (such as The Circus Fire or Faithful, co-written with Stephen King), a novel in stories (Everyday People), and even a novel written in the super tricky second person (the terrific A Prayer for the Dying).

The Night Country could be his most powerful book to date.

From the opening lines (“Come, do you hear it? The wind–murmuring in the eaves, scouring the bare trees.”), this is a book that’s both lyrically written and a real page turner.

I don’t want to get into the plot too much, but The Night Country is a story about death and life after death — both for the dead and for the living. This book is about people who are haunted by their pasts, both literally and figuratively.

This is a book about ghosts and broken dreams and people trying to put the pieces back together after a tragedy.

The story is poignant, evocative, powerful, touching, and chilling.

It’s not a happy read, but it’s an important one.

I highly recommend you give The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan a try this Halloween, or anytime you’re in the mood for a dark, carefully crafted novel that blurs the line between literary and genre.

Brian James Freeman may be one of the busiest men on earth. In addition to his many duties at Cemetery Dance Publications (including working as the managing editor of Cemetery Dance magazine), he’s the owner of Lonely Road Books and a prolific writer to boot. His latest novella is The Painted Darkness, and he’s just published a short story (“Monster Night”) as part of Cemetery Dance’s “13 Days of Halloween” eBook celebration.

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