cover image Deadly Treats: Halloween Tales of Mystery, Magic, and Mayhem

Deadly Treats: Halloween Tales of Mystery, Magic, and Mayhem

Edited by Anne Frasier. Nodin (Ingram, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-935666-18-9

Bestselling thriller author Frasier (who also writes as Theresa Weir) presents a very mixed bag of 21 original spook stories. High points include Stephen Blackmoore’s cleverly conceived and darkly funny zombie story, “World’s Greatest Dad”; the pretentiously vindictive restaurant critic of Mark Hull’s “Friday Night Dining with Marianne”; the optimistically charming earthbound alien in Paula L. Fleming’s “Treats, Tricks, and Terror in Tin Lake”; and Frasier’s own “The Replacement,” a punchy reanimation tale. Many others are more trick than treat: Michael Allan Mallory’s sweetly melancholy “BOO!” stumbles to an unconvincing finale; the excellent detail of Bill Cameron’s “Sunlight Nocturne” fails to mask the lack of plot, and others sink under unoriginal concepts, poor execution, and bland writing. With no clear target audience (though one creepy near-rape scene takes it firmly out of the YA market) and no big horror names to anchor it, this anthology is unlikely to stand out from its peers. (Oct.)