American Nocturne

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American Nocturne by Hank Schwaeble

This story collection by author Hank Schwaeble is so good that I would give it six stars if I could.

That might sound hyperbolic, but it is such a pleasure to read a set of stories with beginning, middle and ending, and interesting plots and characters, that went some place, after suffering through another “Best of the Year in Fantasy and Science Fiction” where the stories missed those elements and went exactly nowhere.

Schwaeble writes horror stories, although he delivers a brilliant homage to Karl Kolchak in one. His stories usually feature someone getting their just desserts. The stories work nicely and kept my attention.

The anthology features ten stores plus two “bonus” stories. The stories are:

American Nocturne – This is a story dying for film noire treatment. A detective follows the clue to find a murderer with surprising results.

Midnight Bogey Blues – A possessed man searches for the anti-Christ.

Gommorah – Street thugs pick on absolutely the wrong person.

Bone Daddy – A story about making a porn film, a hooker and a mummy.

Phantom Hill – A horror story set in the old West. A lawman hunting demons who requires a pure heart.

Murmur of Evil – Mr. Schwaeble got permission from the family of the author of the Night Stalker to write a Karl Kolchak story. This story gets the tone, tempo, language and character down perfectly. It was fun to see Karl, Tony and even Ron back in action.

Nurture – Nature or nurture, with a healthy topping of revenge. This was a grisly story, not my favorite, but way off the charts in terms of “creep factor.”

To Judge the Quick – Another tale of Horror set in the Old West. This one involves witchcraft and Western justice.

Mugwump – Grant Lomax is a lawyer with a loathsome client, but breaching fiduciary duties has consequences.

Cold Service – Marlie wants to kill a serial killer and save his victims. Doing both is metaphysically impossible.

Again, the genre here is Horror. Most of the stories are “dark,” in that they involve nasty people doing nasty things and getting their just desserts, even if we feel sympathetic to the nasty person, as in the case of Grant Lomax. These are cautionary tales that warn us to step back from the edge of dubious ethics and morality.

Some of the stories are sort of upbeat, in that we get to root for the good guy, as in the case of “Cold Service.” But even there, the happy ending is a mixed bag.

The best story as far as I was concerned was the Karl Kolchak/Night Stalker story. This story had all the elements of humor, action and creepy horror. As I was reading this story, the voice of the late great Daren McGavin was narrating the story in my mind.

This is good fiction. Buy a copy and subsidize this author.