Black Spiral Twisted Tales of TERROR

The late, great Robert Bloch (author of *Psycho* ) was a master of macabre humor: he was fond of clever, grisly one-liners, often used as twist endings. He also liked to write about psychotic and psychopathic killers. This solid anthology, put out by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and completed after Bloch's death, honors his legacy with 22 tales about murderers and crazies of various stripes. A good many of the stories, most memorably Esther Friesner's "Lonelyhearts," have Blochian twists at the end. The weakest of the bunch have no other flaw than predictability, and the strongest, such as Ed Gorman's powerful "Out There in the Darkness" are classics of traditional storytelling. You'll find excellent stories here by Denise M. Bruchman, Del Stone Jr., Edo van Belkom, Gary A. Braunbeck, and others. Stephen King contributes a little gem of a tale in which the narrator finds himself in an autopsy room: "It fits. It fits everything with a horrid prophylactic snugness. The dark. The rubbery smell.... Dear God, I'm in a body bag." Note: the two previous HWA anthologies are *Under the Fang* , edited by Robert R. McCammon, and *Peter Straub's Ghosts* , edited by Peter Straub. *\--Fiona Webster*

**Contents:**

Autopsy Room Four by Stephen King

Haunted by Charles Grant

Out There in the Darkness by Ed Gorman

Please Help Me by Richard Christian Matheson

The Lesser of Two Evils by Denise M. Bruchman

Point of Intersection by Dominick Cancilla

Doctor, Lawyer, Kansas City Chief by Brent Monahan

Grandpa's Head by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Lonelyhearts by Esther M. Friesner

Lighting the Corpses by Del Stone Jr.

Echoes by Cindie Geddes

Lifeline by Yvonne Navarro

Blameless by David Niall Wilson

Deep Down There by Clark Perry

Knacker Man by Richard Parks

So You Wanna Be a Hitman by Gary Jonas

The Rug by Edo van Belkom

Interview with a Psycho by Billie Sue Mosiman

Icewall by William D. Gagliani

A Southern Night by Jane Yolen

The Forgiven by Stephen M. Rainey

Safe by Gary A. Braunbeck