Alfred Hitchcock – The Graveyard Man

Alfred Hitchcock – The Graveyard Man (NEL, October 1968)

 

Josh Kirby

C. B. Gilford – The Cemetery Man
Clark Howard – Spook House
W. Sherwood Harman – Poltergeist
Robert Bloch – A Killing In The Market
C. B. Gilford – Never Marry A Witch
Avram Davidson – A Shot From The Dark Night
Henry Slesar – Murder Delayed
Lawrence Treat – Shoot A Friendly Bullet
William Link & Richard Levinson – The Man In The Lobby
Robert Edmon Alter – The Shunned House

Blurb:
“Some of the best and most eerie story material in the world can be found in the locale where I am pictured on the cover.’
So writes Alfred Hitchcock, King of Chills and Master of the Macabre, in the introduction to this latest unholy collection of tales.
And he backs up his claim by presenting herein for your delectation stories by such literary ghouls as

Robert Bloch
Avram Davidson
Lawrence Treat
Henry Slesar
and many more.
We suggest you check on your nerves before ven­turing into this domain of death.

At 96 pages all in, minimalist even by NEL standards and doubtless much of the material is more crime than horror-supernatural orientated, though where there are titles like The Cemetery Man and Poltergeist there is hope. i’ve heard only good things about Carney Kill author Robert Edmon Alter’s haunted house story and Clark Howard wrote the occasional horror short including the ghoulish The Keeper Of The Crypt, which enlivened a summer of love issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Columbo co-creators Link & Levinson contributed a minor ‘when seafood attacks’ effort to Fred Pickersgill’s And Graves Give Up Their Dead. Bloch’s is only one of three stories i didn’t write up from his Fear & Trembling collection, meaning it was either too complex or routine for me to desecrate.