A dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation toA dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation to his guests that the original residents of their houses were a coven of nine witches who made a pact to keep “the spirits bound to the other realm”. But, in time, that magic has been weakening, “barely holding on by a thread”. If the residents fail to strengthen the number nine in their lives, then the resulting failure of that binding could free those spirits. “Terrible things could happen on Nine Street”. And THAT is the basis for a thoroughly entertaining collection of tales indeed!
TWISTED TALES OF A DEAD END STREET is a bravura collection of fast-paced horror shorts with themes of murder, animal abuse, paranormal, and malevolent spirits delivered with humour, a cast of characters with tongue-in-cheek Dickensian names, and suitably gothic atmosphere. Although each of the chapters stands on its own merits as a compelling short story, the linkage between the stories provides the basis for a clever ending twist in the final chapter.
This is the first of three books that I purchased when I met the author at a local book fair. I’m definitely looking forward to the other two and I’m thrilled to have made the acquaintance of such a skilled local author that I can happily recommend to fellow readers.
“A newly discovered Vermeer – it would rock the art world.”
Indeed it would.
GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE is the poignant and compelling tale of the prove“A newly discovered Vermeer – it would rock the art world.”
Indeed it would.
GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE is the poignant and compelling tale of the provenance of a fictional undiscovered Vermeer that the current owner, for reasons of his own, is unwilling to disclose to the art world or present to experts for validation. Eight short stories, linked to one another through the painting, trace its life backwards in time from the present owner, through Holland under Nazi occupation in World War II all the way back to the 17th century when a financially challenged Vermeer sought to put brush and his own ground colours to canvas in the creation of a painting of … well, you’re just going to have to read the stories for yourself!
GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE is entertaining, informative and as easy to read and comfortably sink yourself into as looking at your favourite Vermeer painting and allowing his trademark treatment of light streaming through the ever present upper left window to wash over you. Full disclosure … Vermeer is definitely my favourite classical artist so I’ll admit that made the novel even more enjoyable. What a wonderful treat the art world might have if a new Vermeer were discovered.
In his foreword, Deaver continues, “To me, that big oh-my-God surprise is what short stories are a“The title of my anthologies is no coincidence.”
In his foreword, Deaver continues, “To me, that big oh-my-God surprise is what short stories are all about.”
When I gave a 5-star review to TWISTED, Deaver’s first collection of this type of short story and novellas, I recognized his skill at producing his pre-announced surprise endings that were absolutely expected from the first word in the story but both unknown and unknowable in their reality until Deaver pulled back the curtain for that final reveal. I also complimented his mature skills as an author in putting these twists into such a polished literary setting,
“Deaver brings to the short story all the sophisticated skills that have been the foundation of his success as a novelist. He has a gift for dialogue, vivid characterization and suspense and his stories show deep insight into the emotions, the motivations, the fears and the love and happiness of his widely varied cast of characters. Despite its fundamentally gritty nature, his writing shows uncommonly refreshing humour and a capacity to convey deep feeling.”
Unfortunately MORE TWISTED might have been more accurately entitled LESS TWISTED. The writing skill, the dialogue, the characterization, and the suspense were all there but those endings were, not to put too fine a point on it, simply less convincing, less shocking, less satisfying, and, well, less twisted. I don’t think I’d go quite so far as to say they were predictable but they came disappointingly close. The anthology, in its entirety, was moderately enjoyable but came nowhere near producing the delight that I felt with that first effort.
“Even if, one day, proof is given that our fear-created beings do not actually exist, we will probably invent new ones”
Even as Shakespeare’s coven“Even if, one day, proof is given that our fear-created beings do not actually exist, we will probably invent new ones”
Even as Shakespeare’s coven of witches knew that meeting with Macbeth would ultimately result in something evil,
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open locks, Whoever knocks!”
so did the mind of Canadian author and purveyor of horror shorts know that unexpected meetings between strangers might produce strange, dare I say it, twisted outcomes!
UNEXPECTED STRANGERS is a delightful, quirky, quick and easy, eyebrow raising collection of oddball shorts. I was more than pleased to see the author take a couple of quick shots at two of my favourite boogiemen - organized religion and its propensity to proselytize; and the world’s current misguided fascination with fascism and the far right!
Well done, Mr Leslie. Keep ‘em coming! I’m a big fan and I’m definitely looking forward to further anthologies like this one.
“Literature has always fascinated me. With writing, humankind has developed the ability to elevate a person to a state of immortality.”
… “Perhaps that“Literature has always fascinated me. With writing, humankind has developed the ability to elevate a person to a state of immortality.”
… “Perhaps that is why I had spent the last three decades of my life writing, trying to capture the spirit of myself on paper.”
Well, Mr Leslie, I gotta hand it to you. If this literary tidbit reflects your objective as an author and this gruesome, juicy collection of three little pieces of mayhem reflects “your spirit” on paper, then you’re one mighty sick puppy, LOL!
ACTIVE READER and Other Cautionary Tales From the Book World is a short (but most definitely not sweet) read at 64 pages that will take little more than an hour of your time. But the frisson factor and the number of times that you will find yourself raising your eyebrows with a wry head-shaking grimace are out of all proportion to the miniature proportions of the collection.
ACTIVE READER is a tale of stalking and psychopathy with a brilliant, totally macabre twist ending that would shock even hard-core fans of LAW AND ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT. BROWSERS is a tale of a bookstore with a twisted personality, reminiscent in my mind of the rooms in Robert A Heinlein’s AND HE BUILT A CROOKED HOUSE. If the limited reading time remaining in what we all know is our limited life bothers you, it is a tale that will give you pause and make you perhaps more careful of what you wish for. Last but not least, DISTRACTIONS is a cautionary tale that speaks against taking the simplistic mantras offered by many self-help gurus too literally.
I’ve been a Mark Leslie fan for some time now and ACTIVE READER is obviously on the list of reasons why. Definitely recommended and a virtually certain addition to my Top Ten List for 2024.
And (LOL … I think!), once you’ve read the eponymous story, you’ll understand why I’m a little bit freaked that Mr Leslie signed my copy with the caption, “To Paul, one of my favourite ACTIVE READERS”!! Oh, oh!
I might also add that I'm prompted to seek out my long unread, languishing copy of George Stewart's EARTH ABIDES.
CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORIES is a compilation of six (well, you guessed it in one!) classic detective stories. THE Great choice for a reader on the move!
CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORIES is a compilation of six (well, you guessed it in one!) classic detective stories. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUSSEX VAMPIRE and THE BLUE GERANIUM are a pair of very middle-of-the-pack Sherlock Holmes and Jane Marple stories (respectively) and do nothing to aid this anthology in achieving a more stellar review. As with any anthology, there’s a worst and there’s a best. The runt of this particular litter is definitely ASK ME ANOTHER by Frank Gruber. THE STOLEN RUBENS by Jacques Futrelle and THE RIDDLE OF THE YELLOW CANARY by Stuart Palmer are both 4-star efforts but the star of the entire field was definitely SWEATING IT OUT WITH DOVER by Joyce Porter.
Although the overall rating comes in at a marginal 3-stars, the real beauty of this little number is its format. A small font on quite small pages means that, as books go, this book occupies a virtually negligible amount of space in your suitcase. Just the thing for traveling. And, of course, because it’s short stories, it can be picked up and put down and read even in the presence of an endless string of distractions and stops and starts. Despite its somewhat lacking literary values, it’s a great idea for the mobile reader.
They “disappeared like thin ghosts into the thick forest of spruce and poplar and willow”.
Given the Canadian government’s forward-looking decision toThey “disappeared like thin ghosts into the thick forest of spruce and poplar and willow”.
Given the Canadian government’s forward-looking decision to acknowledge the reality of the Catholic Church’s historical attempted genocide, the story of a terrified, young Ojibwe boy finding the courage to run away from his mistreatment at a residential school is hardly a unique idea. However, the compelling, poignant, warm and poetic approach of allowing animal spirits – lynx, rabbit, crow, beaver, wood tick, spider, owl and more – to tell the story with first and third person narratives from their animalistic (and aboriginal) points of view, to prod, to comfort, to tease and befuddle young Charlie Wenjack on his long path to a safe family home away from the dangers of the school, sets the brief reading novella WENJACK into a class of its own.
In the concluding author’s note, Joseph Boyden tells us that the media reporting of the inquiry into the real life Charlie Wenjack’s tragic death (on which his novella is based) prompted the exposure of what was a dark national secret and what must now be characterized as a disgusting part of the Roman Catholic Church’s and our national government’s past. But Canada would wait for another thirty years before the doors on the last residential school would be closed forever. Our Truth and Reconciliation Commission has completed half of its work. The truth, for the most part, is known and accepted even if, perhaps, the actual magnitude of the death count will never be known. Now comes the second, and much more difficult, part. The reconciliation has only just begun.
WENJACK is a unique blend of genres – part historical fiction, part fantasy, part philosophy, and part social commentary – that every person who cares about justice should read.
“Raymond West blew out a cloud of smoke and repeated the words with a kind of deliberate and self-conscious pleasure …”
“Unsolved mysteries”.
Consider b“Raymond West blew out a cloud of smoke and repeated the words with a kind of deliberate and self-conscious pleasure …”
“Unsolved mysteries”.
Consider being a fly on the wall at a regular dinner gathering of six long-time acquaintances – Joyce Lemprière, the artist; the well-groomed man of the world, Sir Henry Clithering; the parish’s elderly clergyman, Dr Pender; writer Raymond West (and almost certainly a stand-in avatar for Agatha Christie herself à la Alfred Hitchcock); the solicitor, Mr Petherick; and, of course (last but hardly least), our soft-spoken, gently smiling and perennially knitting Miss Marple . Each guest, in their turn, takes a crack at befuddling the other guests with some sort of puzzle, mystery, murder or disappearance in which they had been involved and had mystified all those involved at the time of its occurrence.
As I read through the anthology, it occurred to me to wonder whether Isaac Asimov’s CASEBOOK OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS, written late in the 20th century, was perhaps Asimov’s means of paying homage to Dame Christie’s clever meme for the basis of a collection of short, snappy mysteries. I began my review of one of the collections, which ran to six installments, with:
“The drill with Asimov's BLACK WIDOWER mysteries (in music circles, one might call these "divertimenti") is well known to dedicated fans. Six members of the Black Widowers Club (chauvinists one and all, "no women allowed", if you puhhlease!) meet once a month at their club for a gourmet dinner. The members of the group - a lawyer, a cryptographer, a math teacher, a chemist, a mystery writer, and Henry, their inestimable waiter - never fail to ferret out an interesting mystery, theft, disappearance, swindle or some other form of interesting puzzle … Despite the collective intelligence of the group (which Asimov humorously portrays them as being inordinately proud of), the solution of the puzzle always seems just beyond their grasp. Henry, in a quiet, self-effacing manner that doesn't quite succeed in covering his own serving of pride, comes to the rescue with the solution and the explanations for the other members and readers alike!”
If Henry and Jane Marple were to square off against one another in a face-to-face contest of IQs, mental acumen, and puzzle-solving ability, it would no doubt be a close run contest with no clear winner. BUT, as to the stories, well now, that’s a different matter entirely. Asimov is the clear winner by an enormous margin peppering his delightful tidbits with cynicism, word play, jokes, puns, locked room mysteries, irony, sarcasm and other quiet diversions. As much as I love Agatha Christie’s mysteries, THE TUESDAY CLUB MURDERS are, sad to say, quite pedestrian and humorless. Their solutions, only apparent to Miss Marple, of course, consistently seem to arrive from left field deus ex machina, impossible to predict or ferret out in advance by even the most astute and attentive reader.
A three star rating at best rounded UP in deference to my love of Agatha Christie which is wounded but not down for the count!
DARK SHADOWS is Mark Leslie’s third collection of macabre short stories under the series title NOCTURNAL SCROn shadows, scarecrows and silent screams!
DARK SHADOWS is Mark Leslie’s third collection of macabre short stories under the series title NOCTURNAL SCREAMS. If horror built on gushing gore, gruesome violence, or groping, grunting and groaning vampires and zombies with episodic bouts of graphic sex is your thing, you’re definitely in the wrong place. Leslie’s version of horror shorts can be characterized as a thinking man’s old-time story-telling suitable for scaring the pants off your friends around a campfire. With a distinct economy of words he tells the kind of eyebrow raising, shiver inducing tale that creeps up behind you, taps you on your shoulder and makes you whirl around with a gasp (or a silent scream) wondering how that brilliant twist ending snuck up on you out of the darkness.
Leslie himself proudly calls this collection “three quick jaunts into worlds where darkness mingles with the echoes of cries in the night”. The collection is a small one and will take no more than an hour to read through but it’s brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable and easy to recommend. Be warned … if you are a lover of backcountry camping on Canada’s northern wilderness lakes, what you used to thrill to in the call of a loon will never sound the same to you again!
“The Pacific is an oceanic behemoth of eye-watering complexity.”
“A near-limitless range of human and natural conditions exists within its borders, as “The Pacific is an oceanic behemoth of eye-watering complexity.”
“A near-limitless range of human and natural conditions exists within its borders, as one would expect of something so unimaginably enormous.” In a word, its dimensions are staggering.
When I began my reading of PACIFIC, my expectations were that I would encounter something similar to its sister tome which I reviewed with the following summary:
“… , ATLANTIC moves from the tectonic formation of this vast body of water in the mists of antiquity through the various stages of its participation in the history of man upon the earth such as exploration and discovery, colonization, imperialism, warfare and violence, transportation, communication, exploitation, pollution and, as one would expect today, anthropogenic climate warming.”
Obviously, Simon Winchester reached the decision that the Pacific was simply too gargantuan and too overwhelming to attempt that type of all-inclusive approach. Instead, he picked a series of dates scattered throughout reasonably recent history that allowed him to touch on each of these topics someplace within the Pacific Ocean’s vast domain while making no attempt to be exhaustive or even particularly linear.
For me, that approach worked well and made for some interesting, informative, instructive reading on a diverse set of topics that almost read like a series of nominally related novellas. Potential readers might be interested in Winchester’s choice of topics:
1) January 19, 1950: Truman Backs Making The Hydrogen Bomb – The Great Thermonuclear Sea 2) August 7, 1955: First Japanese Transistor Radio is Made – Mr Ibuka’s Radio Revolution 3) April 10, 1959: The Surfing Movie Gidget is Released – The Ecstasies of Wave Riding 4) January 23, 1968: The USS Pueblo is Captured by North Korea – A Dire and Dangerous Irritation 5) January 10, 1972: The RMS Queen Elizabeth Sinks, Hong Kong – Farewell, All My Friends and Foes 6) Christmas Day, 1974: Australian Supercyclone Tracy Touches Down – Echoes of Distant Thunder 7) November 11, 1975: Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is Dismissed – How Goes the Lucky Country? 8) February 17, 1977: The Submersible Alvin Spots an Abyssal Heat Source – The Fires in the Deep 9) December 12, 1981: Coral Bleaching is Seen on Great Barrier Reef – A Fragile and Uncertain Sea 10) June 15, 1991: Mount Pinatubo Erupts, Philippines – Of Masters and Commanders 11) June 2, 1976: The Hawaiian Canoe Hokule’a Completes Her Maiden Voyage – Epilogue: The Call of the Running Tide
Aside from the chapter on surfing which I thought to be fatuous and, quite frankly, boring to tears, the stories ranged from interesting and informative to jaw-dropping, worrisome, and head-shaking. That said, perhaps that chapter on surfing was intended to show up the oft-times silly proclivities of US culture and to contrast with the self-interested, bombastic, and imperialistic manner in which the US destroyed so many lives and contaminated so much territory with toxic nuclear fallout during the 1950s nuclear development program.
PACIFIC ultimately, in my opinion, is a rather sad book that, given global climate warming and the political head-butting that we are seeing today with China and North Korea, leaves one with a worried outlook as to what our future in the second half of the 21st century might look like. Read it, enjoy it, learn from it, and reach your own decisions. Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
Strictly an afterthought, but I was struck by two extended quotations that I thought particularly insightful and downright ingenious. (The jealous wannabe writer in me turns green with envy and admiration)!
The first is an extended outrageous and absolutely hilarious description of Sir Leslie Colin Patterson, a memorable Australian diplomat:
"He was by all appearances overfed; was often overcome with what appeared to be libation-triggered tiredness and emotional excess; and to judge from his utterances, was evidently wildly oversexed. His outbursts caused many of his more sensitive listeners to recoil. His favorite nonsexual pastime, which he often indulged in while giving the very speeches that so marked his career, seemed to be either nasal excavation and gastronomy or competitive wind breaking. He was a caricature, in short, ... "
The second is a closing fervent wish that the USA and China can come to a peaceful understanding of each other's desire for hegemony in the vast expanse of the Pacific:
"Instead of aircraft carriers and pollution, garbage gyres and coral bleaching being the bywords of our presence, there should now be a fresh kind of lexicon. Respect, reverence, accommodation, admiration, and awe for much that the East stands for - all these should now be the new watchwords. For from these ancient calming cultures, there is very much more to learn and absorb than there is to fear and resist. The benefits of Western modernity are quite obvious and should be sought after by all. But the wise benefits of antiquity should not be discounted, either ..."...more
“I am forty-nine years old. I know this because I checked with my mother.”
For fifteen years, Rick Mercer, an ebullient, very funny, intelligent an“I am forty-nine years old. I know this because I checked with my mother.”
For fifteen years, Rick Mercer, an ebullient, very funny, intelligent and sarcastic to a fault, gay, firmly left-leaning television journalist, regaled a rapt TV audience with a weekly “rant”. You wouldn’t win any prizes for guessing that his primary targets were politics and politicians and their decisions (Trump and Trudeau heading up the lengthy list) but, that said, you have to give credit to Mercer for spreading his venom across the whole of Canadian society. Curling; the bottomless money pit that was the Prime Minister’s former residence; Tim Horton’s, the Canadian coffee icon; payday money lenders (aka loan sharks); i-phones and modern technology; university censorship; homophobia (no big surprise there!); gridlock; the Post Office; false advertising; Quebec separation; … well, as you can see, the list is lengthy and spectacularly varied!
FINAL REPORT is simply a collection of the best of those rants with a small handful of short, new essays, (“reflection, recollections and revelations”) added in for good measure. If you’re a Canadian, you need to read this collection. You’ll find yourself, on more than one occasion, nodding your head in vociferous agreement or laughing out loud. If you’re from foreign parts (particularly if you’re an American) reading this may give you a heightened insight into the thinking of left-wing Canadians in a modern world.
“An assemblage of mathematical fancies and entertainments”
An interesting idea for an anthology of short stories on a single, albeit vast, topic … “An assemblage of mathematical fancies and entertainments”
An interesting idea for an anthology of short stories on a single, albeit vast, topic … mathematics.
“Teachers in many cases found it an effective tool, possibly like the sugar coating on a pill. Just as small children train themselves for ‘real’ life through play, so some of us may approach the ostensibly forbidding country of mathematics through the gateway of fun and fancy.”
And, elsewhere in the foreword, editor Fadiman provides an obvious explanation for the clever title calling his collection of tidbits “Invitational Mathematics”.
“The reader is merely asked to look at some odd, shiny, sometimes ridiculous bits and pieces the magpie has retrieved in the course of her housekeeping.”
He ended that foreword with the wish,
“I hope that its stories, cartoons, humorous sketches, parodies, lyrics, anecdotes, verses, and playful speculations will help to seduce those who think they have nonmathematical minds into entering at least the anteroom of the crowded, astonishing, and almost magical hall of mathematics.”
I would concur with the wish and review THE MATHEMATICAL MAGPIE simply by expressing my opinion that the quality of the individual items included in the anthology range from weak and uninteresting to astonishing, amusing, laugh-out-loud funny 5-star gems.
“… she chanced a glance over her shoulder. That was when she saw him”
“… a heavy set man of about 250 pounds and perhaps six feet tall, wearing a red p“… she chanced a glance over her shoulder. That was when she saw him”
“… a heavy set man of about 250 pounds and perhaps six feet tall, wearing a red plaid hunting jacket, dark green work pants and steel toed working boots. That was not unusal in a mining community during hunting season. The peculiar thing that made Mary decide to hightail it out of there were the navy-blue ski mask the man wore and the hatchet he carried.”
LOL, Holy Jason, Batman … djathink!! I’d be shocked if I read anything at all by Mark Leslie and didn’t find at least one tongue-in-cheek, hit-you-between-the-eyes, come-at-you-out-of-nowhere piece of laugh-out-loud humour like that one. And that, of course, is despite the fact that it occurs in the middle of a totally serious short horror story whose ultimate character and surprise ending is near heartbreaking pathos.
NOCTURNAL SCREAMS VOL 4: LITERARY HAUNTS is an all too brief collection of three shorts that showcases the growing talents of Canadian author Mark Leslie. SPIRITS is a wonderful tale of undying love in a paranormal tale showcasing ghosts in a haunted theater. FALL SPECTACLE is the gripping tale of a small northern community terrorized by an axe murderer. And, last but not least, LESS OF A MAN is a novel twist on a zombie tale in a literary world that, for my money at least, is too darn filled with zombie wars and other zombie tropes of every conceivable flavour. Well, one might say that the flavour of this one is definitely unique. See if you don’t agree!
While Mark Leslie is also not above allowing a little romance and hot sex segment to make a cameo appearance from time to time, it is never gratuitous, intrusive or unreasonably graphic.
LITERARY HAUNTS, a thoroughly enjoyable one or at most two sitting collection of short stories is easy to recommend. I’m a continuing fan.
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