Saving the best for last

Apart from finding out I had the same book twice and thus reducing the books to read count I have actually managed to finish another one.


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The Beast with Five Fingers - W.F. Harvey
This is a compilation of short stories by W.F. Harvey and according to the back blurb they showcase "..the many facets of a writer who was a master of the uncanny.". I have to say I struggled with this one in the beginning. The stories did not strike me as that scary, that well written or that interesting but towards the end of the book it redeems itself somewhat.
If the blurb on the back of the book was anything to go by I should have been properly scared witless and thrilled to the max after reading this one. Alas, it did not deliver those emotions in all the stories for me but still a good read.
So, here goes with the good, the reasonable, the excellent and the not so excellent.

Midnight House
Man out for a walk spends the night at a remote in, gets nightmares and thinks something foul has entered into the world during a stormy night (really?? - what are the odds eh?). I did not quite get the point of this story. Was I supposed to be scared by the guy's dreams or by the strange late night goings on at the Inn he stays at. Not sure what the point was to this one.

The Dabblers
Some guys talking about a certain School where public school boys pretend to be ghosts and then (shock, horror!) one of the guys' sons ends up signed up to go there. Again.. so...no real mystery or tension in this one. Did not really get what the scare was supposed to be and the author already explains all the mystery there might have been to what and who these Dabblers are.

Unwinding
A story about a parlour game but not really.
A group of people get together and one of them has a story about meeting a murderer in an railway carriage and I think the suggestion is that one of the guests is actually the murderer. Well, the fact that I have to write this sentence should tell you enough of that story. Vague and a bit meandering and when the end comes you expect more to follow.. but it doesn't

Mrs Ormerod
As far as I can see a story about a housekeeper who does not seem to know her place according to the person who tells the story. Oh and she has a whistle to summon a little boy to her chores for her and makes her boss and his wife help her out. Nothing supernatural or ghostly to be found within 20 miles of this story.

[[By this time you might start to wonder why I bothered to read on, but I believe in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so I read on]]

Double Demon
Guy tries to play two women off each other by convincing each of them he is going to have the other one killed. Seems like the perfect way to make sure you get into heaps of trouble to me! Nice little twist at the end when two doctors come to see him to make sure he gets "a serious break from your life's routine".

The Tool
Man accidentally forgets a few days of the week and the fact that he has killed someone too.
Kind of nice as you do not know what has one on and neither does the narrator.
Too much intro but it moves along nicely after that.

The Heart of the Fire
Man violently parts a fool from his money and buries him under the hearth stone. Then proceeds to keep the fire burning always for fear of the memories of the past... or worse.

The Clock
Man is asked to go into a house and check if a lady's travel clock is still in her house. Turns out it is and it is still ticking after not having been touched for days.. wow, yeah that's very strange and scary. Next please!

Peter Levisham
Man runs into title character several times and what do you know, the guy turns out to be a bad apple.

Miss Cornelius
Miss C gets accused of causing poltergeist activities by a self appointed psychic investigator and his friend. His wife feels bad for Miss C and low and behold the phenomena transfer to his house.
The nice twist at the end is that he turns out to be the one causing trouble. Good set up of story, nice little distraction in throwing in the second set of phenomena at his house and no idea that the ending was going to work out that way. Excellent little tale.

The Man who hated Aspidistras
They say a dog looks like his owner... this one is along the same lines but then with plants.
Short and sweet little story which left me chuckling at the end (especially the last two lines).

Sambo
Doll that makes little girls do things she normally would not do... then gets stolen and ends up in exhibition. Wow.... nope, tried to get it but didn't.

The Star
Man looks at stars while wife goes to sermon by man who talk about the vices of looking at stars. Nothing mysterious to detect in this one.

Across the Moors
Servant gets sent out to fetch a doctor and who does she meet on the moors, in the dark... yep you guessed it a ghost. Nice tension build though and clue not revealed until the end so okay but not brilliant.

The Follower
Man thinks about writing a story whilst staring out the window at his insomniac neighbours. Turns out he is right about what they are up to. Name comes from one of the neighbours waking behind the other one. 1 point for effort on thinking up that title.

August Heat
Not scary but leaves you filled with anticipation when it ends.
Man (nr 1 guy) gets a feeling to do a drawing, not sure who he has drawn. He then goes for walk and bumps into the person he has drawn (nr 2 guy). Who happens to be a chiseling away at a nr 1 guy's grave stone. They talk it out and end up sitting in a small room together, waiting for whatever comes.. they never learn do they?
Last two lines: "But the heat is stifling. It's enough to send a man mad."
Excellent tension builder right there and then it ends... perfect.

Sarah Bennet's Possession
A ghost looking for atonement denied.
The ghost tries a few times to let the characters know he is sorry for what he has done but no one acknowledges this or cares. Neither do I.

The Ankardyne Pew
A covered over pew where all sorts of mischief was carried out and a reference to a bible text. Mmmm....

Miss Avenal
A mental health nurse is forced to have a dose of her own medicine.
The story is a bit sombre and slow but fits in with the scenery in the story.

The Beast with Five Fingers
I must say that he goes out with a bang and not a whimper.
Clever uncle Adrian (never married and blind), clever nephew Eustace (never married and likes beasties of all kinds). Uncle turns out to be good at automatic handwriting which pre-sages what will happen up to a point. Before uncle dies he tells his nephew to ignore any strange requests but the nephew is not there when he dies so.... A few days later a box gets delivered to Nephew Eustace and whatever is in the box escapes. The servants gossip and the butler goes on the hunt for it. It is eventually caught and locked up again but gets out again and again, it seems to have a mind of it's own. Drives nephew Eustace almost crazy in the end... though not completely. A really good story! Good structuring, good narrative flow and the tension is kept high throughout. It might make you look twice the next time you see something scuttling along the walls your house.

So overall, some not so good but some really good and thus the book is definitely worth the read.
I am pretty sure I have read Across the Moors before in a different collection of short stories but otherwise the author was unknown to me.


Title: The Beast with the Five Fingers & other midnight tales
Author: W.F. Harvey
200 pages
Aldine Paperbacks (JM Dent and Sons Limited)
No ISBN nr

Books bought: 0
Books to be read: 70

Now reading a book about something completely different. It's about the "games" people play. It deals with the different ways that people interact with each other (Transactional Analysis) and how people assign certain roles to themselves in certain situations and how it hampers or benefits them in their interactions. Have read some of this before and thought it really interesting.