"Until Amy is found" by Mo Kerr

This is a book of short stories. Most of them are in the gothic horror tradition: there are some clever updatings of some classic motifs such as the broken-down car, the empty farmhouse and the strange stranger in Lucky Jim and the "Psycho made in Yorkshire" in The Long Stop. The title story really goes to town, including a small, isolated community, an encounter at a cemetery, a remote woman (an heiress of course) in an isolated house (complete with servant) to which the young man pays a professional visit (which reminded me of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black), a man sent mad by a love who died, a lunatic asylum and even has the ghost of a smuggler who cursed the island!

But the point is that the author has updated these and played around with the tradition in such a way as to leave us guessing as to the ending. My favourite twist was that in The Long Stop; very clever!

Some of the stories are written in the present tense, which adds something to the tension, and although the narration is usually in the first person there are one or two third person though the point of view is still usually that of the protagonist. The lengths of the stories vary considerably (Until Amy is Found is the longest) and one or two (for example, Not Waving But ... and  The No. 6 Bus) might be described as vignettes.

The stories were well-written. I like the way this author can freshen a cliche by leaving off the last bit; for example "We're blood relatives for crying out." There were some beautiful descriptions and some great quotes:

• Until Amy is Found:
• "I liked nothing better than to jog along the beach into town, running through clouds of my own breath."
• "He peeled off gardening gloves and set them on the table where they sat like scrunched up, petrified birds."
• The Black Doll:
• "The house I grew up in was the last one in the village. It stood alone, hidden by a row of trees that screened the sun and a busy road that sliced the village in half. Traffic trundled by and the trees drooped, casting long shadows over the house."
• "Dad was always drooping in Mum’s shadow. After one of her snide remarks he’d steam up but never come to the boil."
• The Long Stop:
• Butt naked and swaying in and out of a slant of sunlight, Ray is at the window, rubbernecking."
• "there’s the sun, like the top of Humpty Dumpty’s head. Looks like any minute Humpty’ll bob full up and dangle his skinny legs over the side."
• Homecoming:
• "It was as if she’d said goodbye to herself, packed her bags and left, closing the door quietly behind her." 

Enjoyable. April 2019