Reviewed by Steve Johnson.
I like a good mystery, and I like short stories, so I was looking forward to this anthology since Lyn said I could review her author copy and that meant reading it first. It’s funny how tastes differ. Lyn makes a small pencil mark on her anthologies, alongside the stories she particularly likes. And it’s interesting to see that our tastes don’t overlap much but we like about the same number of stories in any anthology – go figure. In this one she liked ten and I liked nine, but the only overlap was hers and Warren Bulls’.
So I liked The Last Gift From My Father because it resonated. It had all the right fairytale elements, an exchange of blood that gives a gift, the mysterious forest, a strange artifact, and enlightenment. It was a solid satisfying read. I liked Lyn’s story for similar reasons, she used a string of New Zealand icons to take the story to Los Angeles and make it relevant there too.
Then there was The Real Killer. The main character was ambiguous, I wasn’t sure if it really was a kid or just someone who sounded that way, the relatives were genuinely unpleasant, and it was a neat ending that made me grin. Done to death by a pea who’d a thunk it. The Reopened Cask was a nice riff on Poe. Parting Gift had a wicked ending, and Nightmare caught me by surprise, I didn’t see that conclusion coming. Venom was really interesting, it kept coming up with another new twist and kept me involved to the last word. Client Pieces and On The Fourth Day both amused me, the former took life in a government office and added a very believable twist, the latter managed to be both credible SF and slightly surreal at the same time.
Of all the Whortleberry anthologies I’ve read I liked this the most. Good stories, and again the presentation, layout, and story order was professional.
