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The Gateway of the Monster... The Red Hand... The Ghost Hunter To Sherlock Holmes the supernatural was a closed book: but other great detectives have always been ready to do battle with the dark instead. This volume brings together sixteen chilling cases of these supernatural sleuths, pitting themselves against the peril of ultimate evil. Here are encounters from the casebooks of the Victorian haunted house investigators John Bell and Flaxman Low, from Carnacki, the Edwardian battler against the abyss, and from horror master Arthur Machen's Mr Dyson, a man-about-town and meddler in strange things. Connoisseurs will find rare cases such as those of Allen Upward's The Ghost Hunter, Robert Barr's Eugene Valmont (who may have inspired Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot) and Donald Campbell's young explorer Leslie Vane, the James Bond of the jazz age, who battles against occult enemies of the British Empire. And the collection is completed by some of the best tales from the pens of modern psychic sleuth authors.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adventures of Occult Detectives,
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This review is from: Black Veil & Other Tales (Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural) (Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural) (Paperback)
In a market flooded by books chronicling the activities of detectives dealing with all sorts of supernatural/paranormal menace in different categories (YA/gothic/sci-fi etc.), this slim and very-very reasonably priced book should be read to get a good idea about the genre. Edited by Mark Valentine, it has the following contents: -(*) Introduction: an overview of the genre and its 'evolution' over past couple of centuries. (1) THE WARDER OF THE DOOR by Robert Eustace & L.T.Meade: a very-very good story that describes an adventure of John Bell, the "ghost exposer". The anthology begins with a very strong note with this story. (2) THE STORY OF SEVENS HALL by E. & H. Heron: a Flaxman Low adventure that is chilling, and compels the reader to look for more of his adventures (fortunately available now: Ghosts: being the experiences of Flaxman Low ... With twelve illustrations by B. E. Minns.). (3) THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER by William Hope Hodgson: This Carnacki-tale holds an august position in the pantheon of occult detectives' adventures, and once you have read it you would never be able to take the concept of occult detectives lightly, so utterly terrifying the story is. (4) 'The Red Hand' by Arthur Machen: the quality starts dipping, as the author presents a tale that is more concerned with its depiction of gothic themes & events than in frightening the reader. (5) "The Haunted Woman" by Allen Upward: a good mystery that is presented properly, and tied up neatly. (6) "The Ghost with the Club-foot" by Robert Barr: an enjoyable and light Eugene Valmont adventure. (7) 'The Curious Activities of Basil Thorpenden' by Vernon Knowles: an overwritten story that reads more like some teenager's amateurish effort than a story becoming of this collection. (8) The Necromancer by Donald Campbell: the worst piece in this book that might force a reader to abandon the pursuit altogether; what made Mark Valentine waste an entire paragraph on this trash in his introduction is a mystery worth investigating. (9) "Waste Manor" by L. Adams Beck: a poignant story that deserves greater appreciation, and hence I would also like to recommend the author's The Ninth Vibration and Other Stories. (10) THE HOUSE OF FENRIS by John Cooling: one of the high points of this collection, and it is a sad thing that more stories by this author is not readily available. (11) THE PRINCE OF BARLOCCO by Mark Valentine: a superb adventure of the Connoisseur, and for more of his recollections I would recommend: The Collected Connoisseur. (12) THE LEGACY OF THE VIPER by C.P. Langeveld: a superb story, and it is a tragedy again to find that more of the adventures of 'The Professor' are not readily available. (13) THE SHEELAGH-NA-GIG by Mary Anne Allen: a brilliant and somewhat apocalyptic story recounted by the author (literary name of Rosemary Pardoe, the famous editor of Ghosts & Scholars)'s heroine Jane Bradshawe (for more of her adventures, I would like to hastily recommend you towards THE ANGRY DEAD). (14) THE BLACK VEIL by A.F.Kidd: an attempt to tale a story that had been hinted by W.H.Hodgson in one of his Carnacki-tales, brilliantly accomplished by the author (the literary name of Chico Kidd, and for more of her works in similar vein: No. 472 Cheyne Walk: Carnackithe Untold Stories). (15) LIKE CLOCKWORK by R.B.Russell: a neat, gentle, and yet very-very scary story told by one-half of the Tartarus Press. (16) SPIRIT SOLUTIONS by Rosalie Parker: a brilliant story by the other-half of Tartarus Press, that invents the concept of consulting occult detective, and then inverts it with a terrifying twist at the end. Overall, out of 16 stories, 10 are absolutely first-rate, and should honour any anthology; 3 are enjoyable, 2 are inferior, and one entails the author a public-flogging. Hence, highly recommended.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, not great,
By Literary Omnivore - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Black Veil & Other Tales (Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural) (Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural) (Paperback)
After reading half this book, I was going to give it only one star. Fortunately, I kept reading; the better stories are all clustered at the back of the book. I gave it three stars because many of the stories are only fair or even poor--a couple, such as 'The Curious Activities of Basil Thorpenden,' could best be described as fantasies or reveries, and one, 'The Necromancer,' is a jingoistic, cartoonish Victorian version of James Bond.
Overall, the stories are just okay. If you enjoy Victorian and Edwardian settings you'll probably like them but I think there are better collections available. One thing I did like was the cover art. What I took to be a monk standing in a cemetery in the small photo shown on Amazon turned out to be Death, with his scythe, standing on a hill and staring down at a sunlit village. I had never heard of the artist, listed as the late Max Wislicenus (1861-1957), and enjoyed seeing his work. The oil painting, 'Musing Death, is apparently in the collection of a German museum, the Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany. |
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