Rating: 
Summary: An artist at work
Review: This is a collection of twelve stories of horror, suspense and dark fiction. Like Charles Grant, Etchison's strength lies on the quiet end of that spectrum. Events in the stories will often seem perfectly normal, even mundane, but bits creep in gradually until the reader realizes that things are not as they should be.Some highlights: "When They Gave Us Memory" - An actor returns to his hometown to find things have changed...but were they ever the same? "Deadtime Story" - A teenager receives a threatening phone call while at work. Will he make it home alive? "Call Home" - A man learns that being a Good Samaritan can be a very bad idea. "A Wind From The South" - A woman has an unexpected visitor who seems harmless at first, until she begins to notice pieces of her life disappearing from her grasp. "The Detailer" - A car wash attendant makes a startling discovery about one of his clients. These are tales that would have made Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling proud. I recommend this collection if you appreciate more subtle discomforts, and know that being unsettled can often touch deeper than outright shock.
Rating:
Summary: An artist at work
Review: This is a collection of twelve stories of horror, suspense and dark fiction. Like Charles Grant, Etchison's strength lies on the quiet end of that spectrum. Events in the stories will often seem perfectly normal, even mundane, but bits creep in gradually until the reader realizes that things are not as they should be. Some highlights: "When They Gave Us Memory" - An actor returns to his hometown to find things have changed...but were they ever the same? "Deadtime Story" - A teenager receives a threatening phone call while at work. Will he make it home alive? "Call Home" - A man learns that being a Good Samaritan can be a very bad idea. "A Wind From The South" - A woman has an unexpected visitor who seems harmless at first, until she begins to notice pieces of her life disappearing from her grasp. "The Detailer" - A car wash attendant makes a startling discovery about one of his clients. These are tales that would have made Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling proud. I recommend this collection if you appreciate more subtle discomforts, and know that being unsettled can often touch deeper than outright shock.
Rating: 
Summary: A Leisure Let-Down!
Review: With all the incredible, seldom heard blurb from other authors and reviewers on the cover and inside cover of this book, I was expecting to see writing that I have never seen before. The Death Artist, at best, is average horror fiction...and many of the 12 stories, as far as I am concerned, are not even horror! One tale, dealing with a woman in the porn business, simply does not belong here. I must have missed what all these other authors praised.
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