Night Music by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 6, 2015

Night Music is the second volume of Nocturnes, collecting John Connolly’s short horror fiction. In fact, it collects every short story Connolly has written since the first volume was published in 2004.

Two of my favorite stories concern a peculiar library. A man who is eased into retirement after the death of his mother sees a woman throw herself in front of a train, but since no body or blood can be found, the police suspect that isolation and loneliness may have had an impact on his mental health. The man is inclined to question his own sanity after he realizes that the woman in the scene was imagined, although she is not the product of his own imagination. “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” taps into the secret fear of all avid readers that the line between reality and fiction might be uncomfortably thin. Fans of fantasy, serious literature, and libraries should all enjoy the story.

The Claxton library is also the setting of “Holmes on the Range”, this time hosting Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who have made a premature appearance at the library after Holmes’ death (later rescinded) in “The Final Solution.” This is a fun story, maybe my favorite in the volume. Apart from its fun factor, it reminders readers why they read: for the opportunity to become lost in a great story, to occupy -- if only momentarily -- a different, more intriguing world.

Books also play a key role in most of the five tales collected under the title “The Fractured Atlas — Five Fragments.” The first tale takes place in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and involves a number of people in different locations who experience misfortune when a book comes into their hands. The book contains worlds, but those who dare to touch it wish they had not. The second tale features a disagreeable bookseller in nineteenth century London who seeks the help of an occultist to learn the true nature of a book that attacks other books. The third and fourth installments take place in the World War I era. The relatively brief third tale, concerning the mud in which fallen soldiers dwell, sets up the fourth, which is more of a detective story involving a missing person who had been attempting to track down a rumored book of the occult that was known by many names, including The Fractured Atlas. The fifth is basically an epilog to the fourth. In the end, the five tales can be read as a story about how books change the world, although not always for the better.

“Blood of the Lamb” is a short, surprising, aptly named, and remarkably creepy story about a girl who has a miraculous power that, to her parents’ dismay, is both revered and feared. The need to feed the woods-dwelling Razorshins with bootleg whiskey during prohibition is the subject of “Razorshins.”

With the help of a … something … the rape victim in “The Lamia” gets revenge. Only a page long, “A Dream of Winter” is as chilling as its title implies.

“The Hollow King” goes off to fight an annual battle with the forces of evil, but each time he returns, the single tear shed by his Queen renews him … but how many tears will the Queen shed when she learns the truth about her King? “Lazarus” arises from the dead and is a disappointment to all, including himself.

Two men who rob the houses and bodies of the dead in a time of war realizes they’re looting the wrong house when they meet “The Children of Dr. Lyall.” An old man checks into a hotel room in “A Haunting,” finding it occupied by a younger version of his dead wife.

The story behind a gruesome painting that might not exist is told in “On The Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier.” It is the least successful entry in the collection.

The collection ends with an engaging essay in which Connolly traces his history as a reader, viewer, and writer of horror. I often skim or skip nonfiction essays in a collection of fiction, but this one -- like the collection as a whole -- is both insightful and entertaining.

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