Editorial: Firstly, it's great – and rare – for an indie writer's work to crossover, receiving public appreciation, and use, in another sphere. Therefore, huge congratulations to Eric Stener Carlson who's achieved this. Ray Russell of Tartarus Press, wrote: 'A metal band in Switzerland–Rorcal (they tour in Europe and Japan) are huge fans of books by Eric Stener Carlson. They have composed an album inspired by the seven scary stories from his excellent Muladona, (also on Tartarus) and invited the author to record some passages from the book. The result is the album Muladona.' Secondly, a personal plug. My first full collection of strange stories, No-One Driving, is due for publication in paperback and ebook this November. Ahead of this, in September, the sainted Tim Jeffreys is publishing the title tale in Dark Lane Anthology 8. http://darklanebooks.blogspot.com/

On Dark Wings by Stephen Gregory, Valancourt Books

Poor taste isn’t something which can be justifiably levelled at Valancourt; for, here again, we are presented with a seasoned, well-practised author whom I’d just recently discovered. Despite being labelled a ‘horror’ author, Gregory’s particular brand leans more toward the subtle and uncanny, where small, psychological breakdowns ultimately impinge. In prose, the antithesis of, say, Stephen King, in using as few words as possible to intimate so much. Bluntly; Gregory turns out to be very much my cup of tea.

  Featuring the original 1983 tale ‘The Cormorant,’ expanded into Gregory’s first novel three years later, consequently adapted for the big screen in ‘87 and reissued by Valancourt in ’13. Six further novels followed; most recently 2015’s Plague of Gulls. You will have gathered by now that Gregory’s field of interest is strictly avian; reflected in this long-awaited first collection of fourteen short tales. The prose is concise, polished, and a joy to the eye, describing encounters less supernatural than chilling in their ominous descriptions of small but scalding existential threats. Favourites include;

  ‘The Boys Who Wouldn’t Wake Up’ where an aged headmaster at a boys’ school – vacated for the Christmas holiday - feels the annual encroaching guilt from a wartime tragedy he believes he could’ve averted. By far, the most touching tale with an especially satisfying use of ghosts. In ‘The Theatre Moth’ an Am-Dram script-writer / actor is plagued by a phobia she’s unable to control.

  ‘The Drowning of Colin Henderson’ follows the ocean-driven journey of a crewman, swept off deck during a storm and described from a birds-eye perspective, beyond the death up to his discovery. ‘The Progress of John Arthur Crabbe’ features the harboured ‘gift’ of a disabled boy finally revealing itself as something rather less benevolent than darkly self-serving.

  A minority of the remainder feature no supernatural element at all, but still render a subtle serendipity. If you’re a fan of the taut approach of implication rather than lurid delineation, then you’ll find Gregory a master.

Children Of The Crimson Sun by Karim Ghahwagi, Egaeus Press (Keynote Edition V)

Karim Ghahwagi describes himself as a music video director, photographer and author of both Danish and Libyan descent, born in the United States, but spending most of his life in Europe. He divides his time between Copenhagen and Los Angeles. Basic biographical details, but perhaps useful in understanding the territory of his fiction.

  The title tale opens the fifth in Egaeus's occasional Keynote series, in 16th century Malta, where a young emissary is sent – on behalf of his Abbot – to investigate the unique and ‘distressing spiritual condition’ of a local fisherman’s daughter. Having recently turned Catholic penitent, a genuinely weird tale ensues of hidden motive and questioned faith as unforeseen forces conspire to expose personal revelations as to the emissary’s true purpose. A slow-burner of a tale that harbours depths that reward with re-reading. Some of the geographical and historical detail in the opening pages, perhaps more anticipatory of a full-length novel, eventually give way to a compelling tale of amoral purpose.

  This close-to-novella length title tale is paired with the slightly shorter, ‘A Haunting in Miniature.’ Posted to an obscure village in the Czech Republic, Izabel Jelinek – representative of the Moravian Church – seeks an interview with the local Commissioner to discover the cause of a series of alleged ghostly sightings in the area. Her researches lead her to the local Napoleonic Wargaming Society; a select club of historical re-enactments by painters of model soldiers. This scene is (also) beautifully rendered as we are introduced to its longest serving member, Maximillian Novak, and the silent commitment of its members and the club members’ room is delineated. Ultimately, it is the spirit of an abandoned soul, to which Jelinek can relate, that provides the denouement and quietly effective it is too.

  As with the protagonist of the previous tale, Jelinek’s true motive - and identity - at first appears ambiguous, until the relationship is – by the climax – joined. Again, local history has returned in the form of an unwitting victim and their harboured past.

Their Dark And Secret Alchemy, Edited by Robert Morgan, Sarob Press

Three longish short tales – Richard Gavin’s ‘Ten of Swords: Ruin,’ Colin Insole’s ‘The Dead of Maridunum’ and Damian Murphy’s ‘The Axis of the Lodestone’ – highlight three of my current favourite authors.

  Richard Gavin’s tale opens on two sisters’ – Desdemona and Celeste - waking in their temporarily abandoned, sprawling lakeside house to a day of what they perceive to be unpredictable, but inevitable, omens. When the younger, more curious, Celeste steals into their parents’ bedroom, she seeks, and finds, a hidden velvet pouch, shaking its contents onto their bed; a series of Tarot-type cards. Picking the cards ‘Ruin’ and ‘The Queen,’ Celeste, memorizing the ceremony once performed by her more expert mother, steals out alone to bury them in the family vault, much to her elder sister’s chagrin. Demanding she returns them before their parents’ get back, Desdemona fears the damage has already been done through her sister’s playful ignorance. Their absent parents – practising experts in the Occult – return to the house to arrange an evening meal as a particular ceremony requiring specific tenets. Unaware of Celeste’s earlier disturbing of fate, the family descend into the consequences of extreme horror.

  I particularly enjoyed the formative scenes with the ambiguity of era. Gavin clearly intended this, since its indefinability increases in significance towards the tale’s end as portals are disastrously breached. An impressive opener. Gavin’s sixth collection of ‘fear and sacred converging’ will be due 2020-21.

  Colin Insole needs no introduction from me. Having swiftly become one of the finest exponents of English folk horror he has, simultaneously, remained beneath its radar. This should – and must – soon change. Of his latest entry, suffice to say that it is so densely plotted – ranging in time from the 14th century to the 1960s’ - that if it were not for the sinister omnipresence of the ubiquitous trickster-clown, the reader could drown beneath the history. Since this ‘history’ is so knowledgeably utilised, you are ensured to remain afloat.

  Murphy’s first collection – Daughters of Apostasy, previously reviewed here – struck an excellent balance between the trajectory of plot, description and pace. With Murphy’s prose here, much product knowledge of his subject is on show, but – from midway - somewhat at the expense of the latter where description's the main focus. Its strongest suit is in the omnipresent enigma of the distant landed boat and the gradual revelation - to the discovery and unexpected significance - of the two-faced God. Greater forward momentum in its middle third may well have attained the tale a fifth star. On a personal note, it’s pleasing that, in a 2017 interview, Murphy cited Insole, John Howard and George Berguno as favourite authors, to which I wholeheartedly concur. You can’t go far wrong with such good taste.

  Collectively, Their Dark and Secret Alchemy showcases three of the best exponents of their genre.

The Other Passenger by John Keir Cross, Valancourt Books

The arrival of John Keir Cross (1914-67) spearheaded the post-war second wave of BBC script writers for radio and TV. He was mainly known for his children's fiction under the pen-name, Stephen Macfarlane. The Other Passenger (1944) was his only collection for adults; issued under his own.

  Of the Portraits, 'The Glass Eye,' 'Clair de Lune' and 'Miss Thing and the Surrealist' are the best. Of the Mysteries, 'Liebestraum' and 'Cyclamen Brown.' These avoid the usual overwrought reactionism, in most contemporary horror, where the reader is supposed to respond, with robotic obedience, to the author's most lurid descriptions, leaving little room for imagination. These five – though featuring horrific elements – are as much reliant upon strangeness and, yes, the uncanny.

  In 'The Glass Eye,' the black humour is beautifully judged, triggered from a lovely fable of Eastern philosophy, worthy of M.P. Shiel or Vernon Lee. A woman in her late thirties, unlucky in love, falls for one she perceives as a handsome ventriloquist at a local theatre. She initiates an amorous correspondence. When – too late - she learns the secret behind the act's success, her bitter vengeance reflects the impotence at her heart – as well as his. This tale may have not only inspired the memorable 'Ventriloquist's Dummy' entry of the film Dead Of Night the following year; it might also have gained Keir Cross entry into screenwriting itself.

  'Clair de Lune' opens on an invitation by a platonic girlfriend to stay at a country retreat amongst a group of bohmeian highbrows, initiating a dark attachment eternally awaiting the spirit of a fearful young girl who appears in the garden for the protagonist alone. The title alludes to the beckoning tune played by ghostly hands upon a stationary lute in the house. A tale that succeeds, mainly, for its manifestation of the girl and the period descriptions of the guests. Intriguing, but not quite followed through, is the raison d'etre of the shadowy enemy that comes between them both.

  Of the sad-older-man-obsessed-with-pretty-young-girl entries, 'Liebestraum' possesses a subtlety and heart, harbouring a sympathy for both main characters, right up to the end. A sanitary inspector loses his wife. Neither husband nor wife loved each other – each knew it - and when the wife dies while having an affair, he, understandably, feels the need to break out and find a very different replacement of his own. Things go well enough, platonically, but something else is going on within him.

  'Miss Thing and the Surrealist' features an artist (of guess which former movement) and the disparate, disguised identity of his greatest work that somehow maintains a psychological hold on its creator and followers; a refreshingly odd diversion from the genre and its sub-genres depicted elsewhere. 'Cyclamen Brown' is the first-person narrative about a meeting with a commercial writer of popular song, who ducks and dives amid the 'racketeers, sharks and toughs' of Forties London. The character Eddie Wheeler is convincingly drawn. (Convincing in that he reminded me of someone I know); fast-talking, no-nonsense, with a depracating wit to his speech. The title alludes to his mysterious, torch-singing muse who wears a permanent mask on and off-stage. This is, in truth, her story.

  Subsequently, Keir Cross's most resonant contribution to the genre were, first, with the BBC, as radio script-adapter for anthology series The Man In Black (1949), (introduced by the sepulchral-voiced actor, Valentine Dyall), then, in the 50s' and 60s', a return to children's fantasy with entries for Children's Hour. He ended his career with a one-off production of The Box Of Delights for Saturday Night Theatre (1966).

  To J.F. Norris's credit – whose new introduction gives precious background on the career – he leaves the reader hungry to proceed. The remaining tales, however, don't truly deliver. The title tale, a doppelganger re-run, displays much stylish form for little real substance.

  Keir Cross's approach is hardly ahead of its time, being very much of it. Like his contemporaries, he has a particular disdain for the metropolitan lower middle-class. Men are henpecked, wig-wearing, denture-wearing impotents eager to cave-in their spouse's heads as a delusional shortcut to dominance. His women are ideal targets for that era's casual misogyny, depicted as 'little,' 'loathsome' or excessively fat; sex-jaded burdens on their long-suffering husbands. Next to Valancourt's exemplary reissues by Forrest Reid, Claude Houghton, Lord Dunsany and many others, The Other Passenger proves we'd been spoiled; but, the best of Keir Cross shows what might have been had he remained longer on the page.

Pan Review Of The Arts No.7 will appear in May.

November Night Tales by Henry Chapman Mercer, Valancourt Books & Swan River Press

Originally published in 1928, two years before his death at 73 - in the week that also robbed us of DH Lawrence – 'November Night Tales' was Mercer's only collection, and penultimate book. Better known in life for non-fiction on his broad specialities of architecture, paleontology and engineering, it soon becomes clear that – unlike so many of his contemporaries - he never allows his first-hand knowledge to stifle style or the sense of adventure. There is a light touch and tight literary discipline in his approach, unencumbered by the usual showy research of the history scholar, while his descriptive sense is sensual but controlled. (His graduating in Liberal Arts also means he consciously avoids the usual contemporary prejudices).

  'Castle Valley' – a forgotten prophecy unfurls as an artist, Pryor, unwittingly paints a castle once planned by an ancestor but never completed. When a polished mineral stone is found on the actual site, dating back to the crystal-gazers of folklore, a train of precognitive events appear triggered. 'The North Ferry Bridge' – a discredited doctor, his rival, his experiment, his kidnapping and a secret foundary of ravenous rats are behind this most Buchan-esque of mysteries. 'The Blackbirds' – an engraving, a lost artist and his fate at the hands of Indian fire-worshippers play-out this very Blackwood-ian tale. 'The Wolf Book' – an occult tapestry, kept in a tin can, and lusted after by lycanthropic peasants in the Carpathians, is just one of a lost series of much sought-after 'wolf books,' also wanted by more modern seekers.

  'The Dolls’ Castle' – the dramatist, Charles Carrington's second appearance, after 'The Blackbirds,' in a satisfying and creepily restrained haunted house tale. “There, propped close together against the dingy plaster, an unaccountable array of diminutive figures,—dolls, in various dresses and of many sizes and kinds, startling, repulsive,— seemed to gaze at them from the shadows. The slanting rays of evening, through several breaks in the dimmed glass, here and there brightening the display, showed the havoc of moth and damp upon the tattered costumes, mouldy hair, and glassy-eyed faces rotted into paintless knobs.” They also dance --- unaided and unseen --- all according to rumour, of course. Mercer appears to have once considered Carrington and Pryor as more regular characters, since the former features in both 'Castle Valley' and 'The Dolls' Castle,' with the latter also in 'Castle Valley' and here.

  'The Sunken City' – the re-emergence of a subterranean city of Homeric legend recurs in this collection's superior tale of cloak n' dagger intrigue. 'The Well of Monte Corbo' – for the fifth time in this collection, the true provenance of a castle and its harboured, mythologised secret is the source of a search between two former art students of parallel sketches by Titian and Durer. This is an additional tale – and up-to-standard – apparently found amongst the author's papers after his death.

  While each tale – featuring either a castle, monastery or secretive outbuilding - can therefore be classed as Gothic, they are all written in the, then, modern idiom. For those with a taste for the retro adventure, had Mark Valentine's or John Howard's names been on the cover, few would have questioned the attribution. This gives them a timeless quality that, conversely, evokes many genre-influenced authors today.

  If not strictly uncanny, each mystery is layered with intimations of precognition and 'coincidence,' suggesting the iconoclast Mercer himself may well have been a believer. Such authenticity of voice makes each entry a superb example of the genre and a satisfying read for the season. The title is newly-re-released, both in paperback from Valancourt and hardback from Swan River; perhaps a more fortuitous circumstance for the collector-reader than the respective publishers.