This collection from The Swan River Press contains ten well-crafted stories by R. B. Russell, better known to many of us as Ray Russell, co-founder of Tartarus Press. The tales here qualify as weird, strange, sometimes ghostly, and occasionally horrific. They are hard to classify in more specific terms, but all offer a perspective on our mortal condition.The first story, 'Night Porter', concerns a young woman in need of a job who accepts a post at a somewhat dodgy hotel. Marianne is disturbed by a strange client, Miss Fisher, who is in the habit of renting a room for herself and various drunken men. Odd things happen, terrible stains are found, an old man with a hypodermic needle appears briefly. Marianne's position as an apparently innocent observer is somewhat subverted by the ending, which suggests that she is in fact involved in something deeply wrong.
'At the End of the World' is the first-person narrative of a man with a wayward brother called Paul. Paul has led a nomadic and often dangerous life, dabbling in drugs, travelling widely, never staying anywhere for long. Finally his brother finds him living in a old railway carriage, wintering at a bleak seaside town. Paul, it transpires, has had a good reason to keep moving, but has run out of options. A strange force is on his trail, in a story slightly reminiscent of Bradbury's 'The Wind'.
'Brighthelmstone' is one of those stories that taught me a fact - the title is the original name of Brighton. This is a relatively slight tale of a boyhood incident in the resort, and is very evocative of seaside holidays a couple of generations ago. It has a Ruth Rendell twist, in which a terrible event comes almost out of nowhere, and is then finessed into the fabric of the narrator's life.
