Cranston Public Library

A collection of ghost stories by American and English authors. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day creations by Joyce Carol Oates and Chet Williamson, to pulp yarns from August Derleth and M.L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Kipling and Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov. Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms,...

Hired by a childhood friend, the aging Self searches for a prankish hacker who's invaded the computer system of a Rhineland chemical plant. But his investigation leads to murder, and from there to the charnel house of Germany's past, where the secrets of powerful corporations lie among the bones of numberless dead. What ensues is a taut, psychologically complex, and densely atmospheric moral thriller featuring a shrewd, self-mocking protagonist.

"Once upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall. Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Shoot the Piano Player is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is;...

"Things aren't going so well for Richie Segal. His prospects at the job are pretty miserable and, what's more humilliating, his wife's prospects at her job are pretty good. Richie knows he's a good saleman, but he just can't seem to land an account."--Back cover.

"Zombies ain't what they used to be. Not so long ago, they were safely ensconced on Haiti so the rest of the world could merely scoff at the bizarre myth of the living dead on one relatively small Caribbean island. Well, they have proliferated at an alarming rate, invading the rest of the world, and it seems unlikely that they have any intention of going away anytime soon. W.B. Seabrook, in his 1929 book, The Magic Island, recounted "true" tales of...

Real diagnosable amnesia is mostly just a rumor in the world, a rare and usually temporary condition. But in literature it has formed a recurring theme -- even a genre of its own -- reflecting a modern mood, and a mood that clearly has special appeal to Americans. From the noir troupe of a lone man wandering the streets in an amnesiac stupor wondering if he's done anything criminal, to a more existential meditation on absence, to stories whose conclusions...