books – Page 229 – What Cathy Read Next…

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This week’s topic is a Hallowe’en Freebie.

I’ve chosen ten stories by M. R. James from Collected Ghost Stories, published by Oxford University Press in 2011, along with a little taste of the spine-chilling delights to be found within them. James is quoted as saying, “the story must put the reader into the position of saying to himself, ‘If I’m not very careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'”

‘The Ash Tree’
‘There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there; it seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now you would guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads, round and brownish that move back and forward, even as low as his chest. It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more? There! something drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash; another – four – and after that there is silence again.‘

‘The Mezzotint’
‘In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was creeping on all-fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.’

‘Number 13’
‘His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it.‘

‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad!’
‘The light was obscure, conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter evening, and slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor was visible. Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a moment more, and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the groynes, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came the more obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though his face was not to be distinguished.’

‘The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral’
‘Oct 11 – Candles lit in the choir for the first time at evening prayers. It came as a shock: I find that I absolutely shrink from the dark season.’

‘A Warning to the Curious’
‘However we were beginning to have inklings of – we didn’t know what, and anyhow nerves are infectious. So we did go, first peering out as we opened the door, and fancying (I found we both had the fancy) that a shadow, or more than a shadow – but it made no sound – passed from before us to one side as we came out into the passage.’

‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’
“Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of the Abbot’s house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a guardian over them. Gare à qui la touche.” [Beware who touches it]

‘Lost Hearts’
‘Still as the night was, the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not yet lulled to rest. From time to time strange cries as of lost and despairing wanderers sounded from across the mere.’

‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’
‘It was nearly five o’clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows while the curious noises – the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day – seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.’

‘Rats’
“And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you’d see the ragged, mouldy bedclothes a-heaving and a-heaving like seas.” “And a-heaving and a-heaving with what?” he says. “Why, with the rats under ’em.”

Sleep well…

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.

Saturday – I shared my review of The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse.

New arrivals

A week of ARCs…

The Enigma Girl by Henry Porter (eARC, Quercus via NetGalley)

Slim Parsons is all but burned.

Her last deep cover job for MI5 ended with a life-and-death struggle on a private jet that caused her to go on the run from both the deadly target and her angry bosses in the Security Service. They say that violence comes too easily to her; that she’s bordering on delinquent and unsuitable for the roll of an MI5 operative.

Yet she is recalled and asked to infiltrate a news website that’s causing alarm in the highest circles. It is staffed by a group descended from wartime codebreakers operating from an unassuming office block near Bletchley Park. Operation Linesman looks like a come down, the curtain on a brilliant career in the shadows. However, she accepts the assignment on condition that the Security Service searches for her missing brother.

Linesman turns out to be anything but simple. Her personal loss, her previous deep cover role, and a threat to MI5 itself from her original target come together in a three-way collision.

And all the while she is watched by someone even deeper in the shadows than she is.

Another Man in the Street by Caryl Phillips (eARC, Bloomsbury via NetGalley)

In the early Sixties, Victor ‘Lucky’ Johnson arrives in London from St Kitts, with dreams of becoming a journalist. Lucky soon finds work first at an Irish pub in Notting Hill – then as a rent collector for an unscrupulous slum landlord Peter Feldman.

Shadowing Lucky from his early struggles in London to the present day, Caryl Phillips paints a striking portrait of a flawed but vividly alive man grappling with the lifelong disillusionments of exile – and the uniquely complicated identity of the Windrush generation.

Another Man in the Street is an unforgettable story of loss, displacement, belonging, and the triumph of Black resilience – epic in scope and yet profoundly intimate; and a radical and timely portrait of immigrant London.

Revenge of Rome (Eagles of the Empire #23) by Simon Scarrow (ARC, Headline)

AD 61. Britannia is divided. The rebel horde has been defeated. But the leader, Boudica, and her remaining warriors are still at large. With them is the eagle standard of the Ninth Legion, taken in ambush, flaunted as proof that Rome can yet be beaten. The embers of rebellion are still glowing . . .

The toll has been heavy, with countless men lost, and major towns in ruins. The bodies of the dead are strewn across the streets. And for Centurion Macro, there is the scarring knowledge that his mother perished in the attack on Londinium.

As Macro’s heart burns for revenge, he and his comrade-in-arms Prefect Cato are tasked with hunting down the remnants of the enemy army. There can be no peace until the queen is captured or killed. And Roman honour will only be restored when the eagle standard has been recovered.

Deeds of Darkness: Stories by William Burton McCormick (eARC, Level Best Books)

A collection of twenty-four globetrotting stories of suspense, mystery, crime, espionage, horror, and historical genres, Deeds of Darkness takes readers from war-torn Eastern Europe to gangster America and deep below the frozen seas of the Arctic Ocean.

From modern tales of crime to World War II espionage to ghost stories in shadowy Odessa and murder in Ancient Rome, every flavour of suspense and adventure awaits within.