Editor and author, Charles Birkin put his stamp on modern horror with an influence still felt today. In the stories presented here, Birkin knows that the true nature of horror is that of having the familiar mutate into something awful, often without warning. Family relationships are perfect targets, ripe for this intrusion of the awful. The horrid truth that Harwood has to live with in the first story. The hideous error in judgement that Hayley makes in "The Godsend", the horrifying readiness with which average people may come to embrace evil as shown in "Green Fingers", and perhaps the most distressing of all, "A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" These are stories written by a man who perfectly understands the nature of terror and assumes the literary mantle of the great Maurice Level as master of the conte cruel.Readers discovering Sir Charles Birkin for the first time will be amazed at the versatility and power of his stories and will readily see why many of today's current authors in the horror genre rank Sir Charles Birkin at or very near the top of their list of influences.
