cover image Halloween Horrors

Halloween Horrors

. Doubleday Books, $12.95 (178pp) ISBN 978-0-385-19558-4

Ryan has put together an entertaining and timely collection of horror tales by a diverse group of writers, ranging from the venerable Frank Belknap Long (who was first published in 1924) to modern master Ramsey Campbell and relative newcomer Craig Shaw Gardner. Among the best stories are Robert McCammon's ""He'll Come Knocking At Your Door,'' which builds to a high level of tension as it tells of a family whose good fortune is provided by an entity who exacts repayment on Halloween; Whitley Strieber's ``The Nixon Mask,'' a macabre and hilarious envisioning of the former president at his most paranoid and incoherent; ``Trickster'' by Steve Rasnic Tem, set amid the confusion and revels of a Mardi-Gras-like Halloween night in San Francisco, where a man catches sight of his long-dead joke-playing brother; and Robert Bloch's ``Pranks,'' in which an old couple demonstrate they have some original ideas about how to handle trick-or-treating children. (September 19)