This is a new collection of nine stories by one of
those pulp writers who is known by every fan of the form but is completely
unknown by everyone else. Which is a shame because at his best Zagat wrote
well, at times even approaching a Bradburyesque poeticism. Seven of the stories
in this volume were originally published in Spicy
Mystery between 1936 and 1938, and the final two are from Thrilling Mystery in ’36 and ’39.
Spicy
Mystery was a weird menace pulp plus sex. In weird menace
stories the supernatural doings would be explained away at the end as the
machinations of a villain out to get the money/girl/property/Macguffin for
himself. Think of it as Scooby-Doo with Daphne and Velma flashing their boobs
all the time. Mmm . . . Daphne and Velma flashing their boobs . . .
Sorry. I went away for a moment but I’m back now.
If that type of story doesn’t appeal to you but the
horror element does, this may be the book for you as Zagat frequently pulls the
rug out by not explaining that the spooky stuff has a natural cause. In the
title story, for instance, a writer who is camping in a swamp to accumulate
color for his new book is seduced by a woman who seems to have the ability to
transform into a snake. Her presence is the result of human tampering, but
maybe she’s for real.
In “By Subway to Hell” a young woman suddenly finds
herself pursued by green, glowing men through subway tunnels. Zagat sends this
tale out of the gate at full speed and it never slows down until we learn the
truth about these subterranean monsters. Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense,
but who cares? The yarn is an exercise in momentum and atmosphere.
“The Horror in the Crib” seems to start out as a
psychological study of a young mother who is losing her mind. We see her in the
beginning leaning over her baby’s crib with a pair of scissors in her hand,
looking as if she intends to stab the child. Then we realize that this is no
normal human infant.
“Her hands clutched the crib’s top bar and her eyes
stared down into it. Her slim body was sheathed with ice and a scream ripped
from her throat. Tiny reptilian eyes blinked up at her from the beribboned
pillow, hooded eyes in a green, grotesque head that was long and flat and
triangular, a head split by a fang-serried, malignant grin.”
A couple of other stories in the book also feature
human children who are more bestial than your average rug rat. Or maybe that’s
just what they are. Human rats. If Zagat had any kids of his own, I wonder what
they thought of their old man’s visions of childhood.
I usually read one story a night when I’m working on
a single author collection, but I ripped through this one in two evenings. Good
stuff.
And don’t be misled by Zagat using a pen name for
these stories, the witty Morgan LaFay. He wasn’t hiding his real name because
he was writing for one of the Spicy
titles. He was just so prolific he had to use several nom de pulps so readers
would think they were getting stories by a variety of authors.
One writer, though, was afraid that he might miss
sales to the higher paying slick magazines if their editors knew he contributed
so much to the Spicy line, so Hugh B.
Cave, just in case, signed his Spicy
stories as by “Justin Case.” You gotta love it.
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