Mark Morris goes for a no-nonsense, no-frills approach with IMMORTAL, a chilly police procedural with forensic gore and an excellent showdown in a deserted railway station.īasil Copper’s CRY WOLF is a solid if unremarkable mystery yarn with a werewolf laying siege to a snowbound village. I would have liked a little more detail, but this is good, for the most part.

Roberta Lannes goes for the postmodernist approach with ESSENCE OF THE BEAST, a tragic-romance that’s one of the more original outings here. Stephen Laws’ GUILTY PARTY, in which a man walking in a county lane on a cold winter’s night meets something hairy, is more typical, an able mix of grue and fear. It’s compulsive and harrowing, with Smith putting you into the thick of the action as few others can. Michael Marshall Smith hits the high notes with RAIN FALLS, another unique outing taking place in a single location: a crowded pub. The ideas may be straightforward (sometimes mundane) but something keeps this one eminently readable. Chetwynd-Hayes goes for the predictable with THE WEREWOLF, YET another story set in a ruined farmhouse on the moors. I found it very similar to Campbell’s vampire offering, CONVERSION, and the two could almost go hand-in-hand. comic-style twist in NIGHT BEAT, a short outing in which a policeman tracks a murderer to a museum only to uncover a sinister secret.

By comparison, Scott Bradfield’s THE DREAM OF THE WOLF is less impressive: a subtle, psychological approach to lycanthropy, about a man haunted by his eerie dream world. It’s extremely gory, pretty much unique, and fairly enthralling. By now, I knew what to expect, so was looking forward to indulging myself in a huge compendium of every werewolf-themed horror story under the sun.Ĭlive Barker kicks off again with TWILIGHT AT THE TOWERS, an atypical Cold War thriller mixing in some shape-shifting shenanigans. The third of Stephen Jones’ excellent MAMMOTH anthologies I’d read following on from TERROR and VAMPIRES.

White of the Moon by Stephen Jones