A brilliant selection of haunting, intriguing and mysterious short stories. Not a dud among them.

[I reread The Birds on 31/12/12, having watched the film the previous evening: this 1952 short story formed the inspiration for Hitchcock's classic horror film from 1963. The story is set in Cornwall, not California, and centres around the fate of a farmhand and his wife and two children. It is just as chilling and horrific as the film, perhaps even more so - the inference here is that it has become a post-apocalyptic situation affecting much or all of the world. 5/5 ( )

Jamaica Inn is a wonderfully atmospheric story set in the early nineteenth century in a Cornwall of smugglers and ship wreckers who deliberately lured ships to their doom and killed any survivors in order to loot their goods. Du Maurier is a superb describer of the landscape, attitudes and world view of the Cornish people. A fine twist in the tale in the last 30 pages as well. Great stuff.

Other stories not yet read. ( )