Review: SCARY STORIES by Ron Ripley and Scare Street

5 Spooky Stars

"Walking": an experienced outdoorsman, solitary by nature, camps too close to the dreaded community of Anger, New Hampshire. What he discovers is beyond belief.

"The Bridge ": oh, poetic retribution! A long-married couple check out an odd structure, near deathly Anger, New Hampshire: a Bridge constructed to "Nowhere."

"Squatting ": Of the 5 stories in this collection, this one and "Maker's Hill" gave me the most chills. In fact, they're "screamworthy." A veteran with PTSD seeks a shelter for the winter--in an "abandoned" house in Anger.

"Maker's Hill": New England may be the setting, but this tale could have come right out of the 19th century South. Shudder, Shudder. Shudder.

"The First Bad Thing ": A fascinating explication of a young boy's autism, and its gifts of eidetic memory, wisdom, and will.

There's a plethora of chills to be provided in this collection, and once again I am reminded of the wise adage: "DON'T READ AT NIGHT! DON'T READ ALONE!" All but one of these tales focuses on a Sole Protagonist, a man (or in one case, a boy) out and about all alone, confronted by unbelievable terror. What that terror is, and how they respond, provides for deliciously twisty fear. In "The Bridge," the protagonists are a middle-aged couple, out alone, in the Woods.