サイコ [Robert Bloch's Psychos]

The late, great Robert Bloch (author of Psycho) was a master of macabre humor: he was fond of clever, grisly one-liners, often used as twist endings. He also liked to write about psychotic and psychopathic killers. This solid anthology, put out by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and completed after Bloch's death, honors his legacy with 22 tales about murderers and crazies of various stripes. A good many of the stories, most memorably Esther Friesner's "Lonelyhearts," have Blochian twists at the end. The weakest of the bunch have no other flaw than predictability, and the strongest, such as Ed Gorman's powerful "Out There in the Darkness" are classics of traditional storytelling. You'll find excellent stories here by Denise M. Bruchman, Del Stone Jr., Edo van Belkom, Gary A. Braunbeck, and others. Stephen King contributes a little gem of a tale in which the narrator finds himself in an autopsy room: "It fits. It fits everything with a horrid prophylactic snugness. The dark. The rubbery smell.... Dear God, I'm in a body bag." Note: the two previous HWA anthologies are Under the Fang, edited by Robert R. McCammon, and Peter Straub's Ghosts, edited by Peter Straub. --Fiona Webster

「わたしは誰だ? わが身に何が起こっている? 」ハワードは移送ベッドの上で声にならない悲鳴をあげた。“征服王” の異名をとる敏腕証券マンを襲った悪夢。ゴルフをプレイ中、突如意識を失ったハワードは病院に担ぎ込まれるが、回復と同時に恐怖に包まれた。彼は体の自由がきかないどころか、呼吸をしていないのだ…。(スティーヴン・キング「第四解剖室」より)全米最先端のホラー、ここに上陸。