The ninth volume of this annual collection is now out, and much like the previous reviewed Volume 7 and Volume 8, it proves to be a cracking collection of modern horror tales with its dark heart firmly rooted in the classic compendiums of the 1970s.

As with other volumes, this isn’t a collection of stories by the big wheels of horror fiction, and I’m sure that they would treat it with disdain. No matter. This is generally (though not entirely) excellent, unpretentious horror with a decidedly nasty bent.

The collection gets off to a solid start with John Llewellyn Probert’s grisly The Anatomy Lesson, where a mad doctor who runs live snuff shows for an invited elite stops getting away with it – a grim, graphic and disturbing story that nicely sets the scene for the rest of the book. Craig Herbertson’s The Mall is a bleak tale of a man who’s life is spiralling out of control, even more than he realises, and Simon Bestwick’s Salvaje is a gripping tale of revenge.

Things get decidedly twisted in Gary Fry’s Pet – a tale with a final image that will linger in your mind – and David Williamson’s Ashes to Ashes is a simple but effective story of a man slowly decaying. Anna Taborska’s The Apprentice is a brutal story about a thug who beats his young apprentice, with a suitably warped twist at the end, while Sam Dawson’s Life Expectancy is a more subtle, but highly effective supernatural tale.

The terrors of childhood – namely the fear that imaginary monsters might turn out to be real – lies behind Thana Niveau’s effective The Things That Aren’t There. Paul Finch’s What’s Behind You? also deals with childhood fears and, with its old-fashioned, MR James inspired style, is one of the book’s highlights. Equally effective is the short, sharp shock of Gary Power’s Ben’s Best Friend, where teenage friendship is not all it seems.

The ghost of infidelity haunts Tom Johnstone’s Bit on the Side and John Forth’s A Song, A Silence is a grim tale of monsters lurking in the dark. Marc Lyth’s The Man Who Hated Waste adds a dose of black humour to the proceedings and David A. Riley’s Swan Song is a grim story of right wing bullyboys who finally meet their match.

The collection is marred by two stories that lurch rather too far into the reactionary. Marion Pitman’s Indecent Behaviour is truly dreadful – a series of stereotypes and graphic sex scenes in a story about two ‘queer bashers’ who them find themselves being turned gay by the ghost of a victim. The story has the potential for satire, but this is just shoddily written and offensive to just about everyone – working class youth, gay men, you name it. Kate Farrell’s His Family is less crass, but still seems to suggest that it’s fine for coppers to beat up mentally ill murder suspects.

Still, you can’t win ‘em all. Two out of sixteen is a reasonable level of duffers, and the rest of the collection is first rate. The cover promises ‘gore, grue, stalkers and sadists’ and the book certainly delivers. Another fine entry in the series, and a must for fans of no-nonsense horror fiction.

DAVID FLINT

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