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Title: Behind the Death Ball
Series:
----------
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages:
155
Words: 58K
Publish: 1974
Whenever I see August Derleth’s name in these collections, I grimace, because I know I am getting a “Solar Pons” story. Pons is a poorly executed Sherlock Holmes ripoff and Derleth’s story telling just isn’t up to the original. So I grit my teeth, read as fast as I can and try to get it done with, much like eating broccoli. Thankfully, other stories were much better.
Voodoo Doll had an ending I simply did not see coming. I WAS expecting the voodoo doll (it was going to be a toyline) to end up having real power, but when it was given to the little girl who always broke her toys, well, the story ends with one of the creators sitting in a chair while his head is on the other side of the room. It was absolutely ghoulish :-D
The Hitchhikers was also rather ghoulish. It had something like 4-5 double crosses within the story and it was like getting walloped with a couple of left-right-left-right-right in the boxing ring. I did see the final double cross coming, but it was so obvious that I didn’t feel “clever” knowing it was coming. It had that “inevitable” feel more than anything.
The Fat Jow stories, unlike the Solar Pons, are always a good read. I suspect Fat Jow is a ripoff of Charlie Chan, but I am not familiar enough with Chan to know for sure. Jow is a student of human nature and the stories just kind of flow, not a lot of drama. But they still have kick and I like that.
The final story, The Ghost & Mr. Grebner, was amusing, quiet and yet possibly horrific. It didn’t strike me as horrific when I read it, unlike The Hitchhikers. In fact, I thought it was a gentle, amusing end to the collection. A widower is contemplating marriage to a widow and his dead wife’s ghost appears to him and tells him “no”. He argues with the ghost in that distracted, old man way and the ghost goes away. Mr Grebner proposes and leaves the building. Once he gets to the street, he sees a crowd clustered around a body that obviously came from the apartment he was just in. And it ends. So we’re left with that ambiguity of did the ghost somehow force the widow out the window? Is Mr Grebner completely insane and he threw the widow out the window? Is he having hallucinations about everything? We simply don’t know. The entire story is written in that distracted old man way. He doesn’t question talking to his wife’s ghost, he’s more concerned about what is for dinner. It’s a very mellow story and I thought it was a great book end to this collection.
★★★✬☆
Publisher’s
Blurb & Table of Contents
Any artist is only as good as his
audience. That master orchestrator of terror, Alfred Hitchcock, is no
exception. What good is his fearful brand of fiendish fun if he's no
nerves to twist, no teeth to set chattering, no vocal chords to strum
into high notes of terrified hysteria? That’s where you come in,
dear reader. Just put yourself in his skillful hands. He’ll give
you a screaming good time with personally selected stories &
novelettes by masters of menace & the macabre
1. Perfect Shot-Lawrence Treat
2. The Amateur Philologist-August Derleth
3. The Glint-Arthur Porges
4. The Seventh Man-Helen Nielsen
5. Voodoo Doll-Henry Slesar
6. A Friendly Exorcise-Talmage Powell
7. Many Women Too Many-C.B. Gilford
8. Till Death-Fletcher Flora
9. The Hitchhikers-Bruce Hunsberger
10. Store Cop-Ed Lacy
11. Doom Signal-John Lutz
12. See What’s in the Bag-Hal Ellson
13. Fat Jow & the Walking Woman-Robert Alan Blair
14. The Ghost & Mr. Grebner-Syd Hoff
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