Black Evening

A thrilling and suspenseful short story collection from bestselling and award-winning author David Morrell.David Morrell, whose many bestsellers include Double Image, Extreme Denial, and The Brotherhood of the Rose, has consistently redefined the modern thriller. Now he turns to a darker side of suspense in a powerful collection of tales, many of them award winners, that delve into the weird, uncanny terrors that lurk just beneath the comforting surfaces of daily life. Fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of madness, fear of being trapped, fear of the inescapable, unspeakable horrors that fester deep within the soul.... No matter who or where you are, fear is always with you, always ready to attack from behind the masks of thought and dream. Let David Morrell tell you a story...

Amazon.com Review

David Morrell is best known for testosterone-fueled thrillers like Extreme Denial and First Blood (whose excellent movie version, reissued on DVD in 1999, stars Sylvester Stallone as Rambo). But Morrell has also penned many frightfully scary short stories. In Black Evening, he presents 16 of his favorites, each with a fascinating introduction explaining what provoked him to write it. "The Dripping" (1971) came to the author in a dream that most would regard as a nightmare. In this eerie little number, a father faces his worst fear when his family goes missing. Morrell suffered his own family tragedy in January of 1987, when his son Matt was diagnosed with bone cancer. "Orange Is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity" (the Horror Writers Association's best novella of 1988) was written shortly before Matt's death. Writing about a mad painter kept Morrell sane: "The made-up horror was paradoxically providing a barrier from real-life horror." But after Matt's death, Morrell was besieged with panic attacks, and could do nothing but "stare at the ceiling" for three years. A harrowing story about lost children and a long buried family secret, "The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves" (another HWA award-winner) signified Morrell's return to short fiction. The title is taken from Walt Whitman's poem about death and children; John Rambo's name is a pun on Arthur Rimbaud. Morrell is a genre writer with a poet's soul. And whether he's writing stories of subtle psychological terror or conjuring up scenarios of pure horror, Morrell never fails to scare the bejesus out of us. --Naomi Gesinger

From the Back Cover

David Morrell, whose many bestsellers include Double Image, Extreme Denial, and The Brotherhood of the Rose, has consistently redefined the modern thriller. Now he turns to a darker side of suspense in a powerful collection of tales, many of them award winners, that delve into the weird, uncanny terrors that lurk just beneath the comforting surfaces of daily life.Fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of madness, fear of being trapped, fear of the inescapable, unspeakable horrors that fester deep within the soul.... No matter who or where you are, fear is always with you, always ready to attack from behind the masks of thought and dream.Let David Morrell tell you a story...

About the Author

David Morrell is an Edgar and Anthony Award finalist, a Nero and Macavity winner, and recipient of a prestigious career achievement: the ThrillerMaster award from the International Thriller Writers. He has written more than twenty-five works of fiction, which have been translated into thirty languages. He is also a former literature professor at the University of Iowa and received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University.

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