cover image Cities of Night

Cities of Night

Philip Nutman, . . ChiZine, $16.95 (237pp) ISBN 978-0-9812978-8-0

Journalist and author Nutman collects seven stories published in the 1990s along with three new tales of psychological horror seasoned with a dash of splatterpunk. In the standout “Full Throttle,” slightly psychic teenager Jamie Hurst foresees the violent death of his ne'er-do-well older brother; as an adult in “Blackpool Rock,” Jamie investigates the disappearance of an Elvis impersonator. “A Mother Cries at Midnight” follows Mike Mignola's Hellboy as he encounters La Llorona while searching for a missing child in Los Alamos, N.Mex., and “Love Sells the Proud Heart's Citadel to Fate” is a fine if meandering origin tale for Abraham Van Helsing. Many stories start strongly only to falter, and Nutman relies too heavily on suicide as a device for closure. Fans of his zombie police procedural, Wet Work , may also be disappointed by this collection's relative lack of shambling undead. (May)