I don't read that many anthologies because I get frustrated with being left with wanting more. The following reviews are how I felt right after reading them.
1. 12:01 AM by Alan Jacobson: This was the first story and it was a ride. I did get a little spooked because I was reading this around the time set in the book. The main character is from a book series and she is trying to find a missing woman who is the victim of a copycat on the same night as the OG killer is put to death by lethal injection.
The mood and atmosphere was freaky as hell and I kind of want to read the Karen Vial series now. I give this story a 4 stars. It did kind of drag and I was confsued at some points because there was some contradictory moments.
2. Cell Phone Intolerant by Kevin O'Brien: I have to give this one a three star. Definitely not my favorite but it was good. It is about a guy named Ed who has a problem with people who use cell phones too much. Or more like the rude assholes who hold up lines, talk to loud or just don't pay attention to anything else besides their phone.
He ends up causing mayhem and it is a dominoe effect after he starts using his invention that shocks and short circuits peoples phones. Karma comes back to bite him in the ass when at the end of the story, he becomes a victim of the consequence of his actions.
3. All Aboard by Hank Phillipi Ryan: This one was not suspenseful or thrilling. It was just meh. I thought it was going to be paranormal when a woman named Cady who is a PR fixer and CEO of her own company overhears a phone conversation from the room next door.
She is already paranoid about the train and being gawked at like a caged animal at a zoo while in her room. From the phone conversation she hears, she becomes a self appointed personal protector of the person who is being talked about. The train actually has a fire alarm and all the passengers have to evacuate. Cady has a conversation with the woman named Clarissa who is next door and planning the evil deed against the other woman and Cady actually gets Clarissa to stop her planned attack.
That's basically the story. Boring and forgettable. I actually had to go back to get the name of our main character because I forgot and it wasn't mentioned anywhere else in the story. This is a 2 stars for me
4. Gone Forever b Joseph Badal: Another story that was kind of meh. It's about an attack that happens at a church where the detectives focus on one family because the priest mentions that the killer attacked a woman more than once. That woman had just become a nun and her father was also killed in the attack.
The preist goes on to tell the detective about the family falling into hard times when the matriarch dies from cancer. The oldest son forgoes college to stay behind and help take care of his brother and sister. The story eventually ends with the oldest son losing his father and sister in the church attack and then getting a phone call from his brother's military brother saying that he had been killed in a fire fight just that day.
The guy loses his faith in God and humanity really quickly and realizes that when he killed the church attacker, that it felt great and he goes to become a killer of evil doers.
This story doesn't really have the midnight setting, it just mentions that the interview and phone call happened in the early morning hours. Another 2 star story.
5. Night Shift by Linwood Barclay: This one was really good but right before the end, I figured out who was who. It starts off with two dudes drinking at a bar and this one guy is named Larry who works at a newspaper and he is telling this stranged some weird things that have happened in the early morning hours.
The story he tells is one of a guy calling the newspaper and saying that he was going to shoot up a place and kill a bunch of people. In the background, Larry and his editor Jeff are working witht he cops to find out who this Tim guy is and to stop him.
Like I said, the ending was veyr predictable at the end of the story being told. I give this one a 4 out of 5 stars.
6. Midnight in the Garden of Death by Heather Graham: I give this one 4 stars. It is set in a grave yard in New Orleans. The main characters are two girls who are cousins and one is the daughter of the grae yard care taker. The daughter is telling a ghost story about a local "vampire" and spooking her friends. Eventually a local cop comes around checking on them and telling them a couple spooky stories to get them to stay in the house and out of the grave yard.
Do the kids listen.... NOPE. As soon as the cop leaves, the kids go and start setting up tents and sleeping bags. Marcy, the cousin she runs into a stranger with scraggly hair who looks homeless and he is in one of the vaults. She gives him a bottle of water and leaves him alone. Then that is when shit starts hitting the fan. A popular girl who is a bully shows up and pranks the group and showing her pettiness at not being invited to the sleepover. She soon becomes a plot point in this story.
It gave me the chills because I was reading this around midnight in a dark room.
7. The Sixth Decoy by Paul Kemprecos: Another boring short story. I give this one a 2 out of 5 stars. I just didn't care about the story from the beginning. It is about a man who is a charter boat captain and he lives in New England. He is pulling his boat out of the water for the winter and he is trying to find a way to stay on top of his loan payments. He is stopped by a lawyer who tells him about a rich client who needs is P.I. services.
The main character's name is Soc because his name is so non conventional. Soc meets with the rich dude who has every allergy known to man and can't be contaminated with outside germs. So not original. The whole stroy was about a decoy bird and a fake from china. It was so damn boring. Not suspenseful or thrilling or mysterious at all.
8. A Creative Defense by Jeffrey Deaver: Another 4 star read. This one was about a killer musical piece. Never heard of an idea like this one. The couple in this story go to a musical and the last performance of the night is a piece that is hard to play and is never played anywhere else or by anyone else. It is so mesmerizing that Robert becomes catatonic and is in a sleepwalking sort of state. Beth goes to her job and leaves Robert at home after taking him to a hospital because he keeps humming and zoning out.
He gets the all clear and then he kills his neighbor who he did not get along with. Beth starts researching about the "Midnight Sonatina" and reads that it droves some people to madness and to kill. She is trying to come up with a solid defense for her husband with his sister when Beth plays the piece for Joanne. Joanne ends up going into a trance like state and attacks Beth.
I wish this story was a full length novel, or made into a moovie because I need more.
9. After Midnight by Rhys Bowen: This one is so confusing. I don't get it. The first half is a re-imagining of the story Cinderella where Cinderella doesn't make it back home before midnight and she turns back into a raggedy girl on the road home. She gets stopped by guards who are looking for a ruby necklace and the next morning, she figures out that one of her step sisters stole the necklace.
Then the story has a break titled Cinderella 2 and it is about a girl wanting to go back home to California from Nashville and she hitches a ride with a man who tells her he knew a woman named Jolene just like her but she got hooked on drugs. They stop at a rest stop where he tries to rape her and then she one ups him and gives him the truth about who she really is. That is the end and I was left disappointed. It didn't make any sense. I give this one a 1 star out of 5.
10. Easy Peasy by John Lescroart: Another 2 star read. This stories are supposed to be in a suspense magazine and it is not suspenseful enough. This starts off with a good girl named Carrie who is paranoid about TP-ing a footall players house to fit in with the cool kids. The girl who came up wit the idea is no other than Jason, the football players girlfriend who is doing it to show her love to Jason.
We have another character named Chris who actually breaks in Jason's house to show a little payback to Jason that just because you have money and a nice house doesn't make you better. Chris is bitter about being kicked off the football team because shitty geometry. Jason eventually wakes up when glass is broken and starts shooting and then cops show up and they start shooting.
This story was really stupid and not at all good.
11. Tonic by D.P. Lyle: Finally, another 4 out of 5. I didn't think I was going to like this one in the beginning because it had that country twang dialect and it was set in the 50's. It's about two nit so smart boys who sell dug up bodies for cash. They meet with the middle man in private at night and exchange the bodies. One of thelocal townspeople who is the grave digger notices that the grave dirt has been messed with and he goes to the local sherriff. Then a local boy's body goes missing from a funeral home and the sherriff gets a hot tip from a teen couple who was parking in the cemetary.
I got really intrigued by this story because it reminded me of that old doctor Linda Hazzard back in the day where she worked with a coffi maker and gave families the wrong corpses and all that. Fucked up stuff. The doctor in this story has a speacial business and as you can guess from the title, he makes his own special tonics that cures EVERYTHING!!!!
12. Tonight is the Night by Shannon Kirk: I give this one a 3 out of 5. It was ok. I enjoyed the setting and the bad main characters. Our main character is named George and he works on a mountain with a crew who does maintenace on ski slops. There is a major blizzard going on and so the whole grew is out at this bar that that all frequent with the townies and they all have these rules that they abide by.
There is this new guy named Kyle who tries to interact with George and he keeps brushing him off. Kyle sits in the wrong seat and it starts a bunch of shit and while they are in the bar, they rehash all of George's tales from the mountain. It sounds like the boy who cried wolf and eventually, George starts seeing all of the weird things again. Like a guy wearing a robot head who killed his fiance in front of him and a guy bathing naked in the cold river and he looks like a snowman.
There is also a serial killer on the loose called the spine ripper and the name gave me chills. I just didn't like the attitude of George and the constant descriptions of his pants or truck or his work logo. It was tiring reading about it back to back.
13. ATM by Jon Land: I give this last story a 3 out of 5. It was a little confusing at first because it is hard to figure out what the main character is talking about at first, but you gather really quick that the word tricks are actually paying customers for prostitutes. We meet our main character on the A train in New York where this guy sitting across from him tries to strike up a conversation and Venn assumes that it is someone that he has slept with.
He brushes off the guy and then he tries to find an ATM to withdraw the last 40 bucks in his account and he comes across this shady looking one that is in a old phone booth. He inserts his card and the maching starts speaking to him. Telling him to do these "missions" to get his card back. You would think that these missions would be horrible, but it actually saves people. Not what I was expecting at the end of a suspenseful book.
I did bump it down three stars when it got religious. I am not a religious person and don't enjoy reading about that in books.
Overall I give this a 3 star rating. There are some stories that I just hated and didn't care for, and some that I want more from and would think it would make a great movie or TV show. I was hoping to have at least a 5 star story in this collection, but nope.
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