Death's Twisted Tales

White uses commentary by the Grim Reaper to anchor this enjoyable collection of twisted tales with equally twisted endings. The book includes evocations of classic crime themes, chance encounters with elusive salvation, and mutual empathy emerging from a hostile encounter. In the book's foreword, the Grim Reaper writes, "All of the following short stories have a happy ending. Someone dies." But the succession of sudden plot reversals ultimately reduces the impact of the collection to a series of repetitive jolts, though the varied situations and characters offer a broad range of encounters with man's inevitable fate. Though the episodic nature of White's book calls to mind The Twilight Zone, his stories provide a consistent (and enjoyable) treatment of his theme.