The Arbor House Necropolis

by Bill Pronzini

Gathers stories about voodoo, Egyptian mummies, ghouls, and the dead by Robert Louis Stevenson, Morris West, Barry N. Malzberg, Stephen King and others

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Fiction

727 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels
Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink

Married to author Marcia Muller.

Pseudonyms:
Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Jack Foxx
William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Alex Saxon

Reviews

[Gemima]

Overall, this book has widened my knowledge to certain superstitions but as you can see I had mixed reviews on the stories. However, I would not call it horror.

Papa Benjamin - 3/5 - interesting. Mixture of mentality vs voodooism.
Dead men working in the cane fields - 4/5 - very short but entertaining.
Digging at pistol key - 3/5 - instant karma
Isle of voices - 3/5 - interesting idea
Exú - 4/5 - confusing but entertaining!
Seventh sister - 4/5 - probably my favourite so far!
Devil doll - 4/5 - short but poignant
Candidate - 3/5 - short but interesting
Monkeys - 4/5 - good ending
Bones - 4/5 - introduces science going too far
Vengeance of nitocris - 5/5 - love a good revenge tale
Mummy’s foot - 3/5 - very strange
Eyes of the mummy - 3/5 - curious but cringe
The princess -3/5 - morbid
Edinburgh lady - 5/5 - Brilliant poem
Indigestion - 3/5 - schizophrenic cannibal
Disturb not my slumbering fair - 5/5 - most interesting
Quietly now - 4/5 - love the ending
Memento Mori - 3/5 - more interesting then morbid


Would not reread:
Mother of serpents
7 turns in hangman’s rope
Powers of darkness
Kundu
Lot No. 249
Some words with a mummy
Charlie
Weekend magus
Eagle claw rattle
The other room
Revelation in seven stages
Body snatchers
Loved dead
Chadbourne episode
The ghoul
Spherical ghoul - (clever)
Corpus delectable
Gray matter (ew germs)

[John]

What a steal for a buckaroo! Picked it up a few years ago and kept in my locker at work, for in between books and glad I finally finished it! Great reads about voodoo, mummies, & ghouls! Though this book is from the early 80's it is still a great read and I have always been drawn to short story collections. I will be on the look out for more from the authors in this collection.

[Tristan Marcillaud]

Bill Pronzini’s Tales of the Dead: polite little nightmares served with a dry martini. Crisp mysteries, sneaky chills, and endings that smirk when you thought you’d won. A few stories nap in the middle, but mostly it’s clever, creepy, and quietly smug — perfect if you like your spooks cultured and your justice ironic.

[Tommy Luca]

I enjoy a good healthy scare often and this book has plenty of them, 711 pages of them from noted Authors like Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Louis Stevenson. A staggering collection of scare tales of Voodoo, Zombies, Witches, Mummies and Ghouls! Love the artwork on the cover too.

[Angie]

A good throwback to a time when voodoo, mummies, and ghouls were scary. I like horror stories to pack a bit more punch but there are works from a couple of my favorite masters of horror in this collection. Even though I've read them before the book was still worth a read.

[Joseph]

Contains all the best ghoul stories, including "disturb not my slumbering fair", the best of the genre

[Cws]

M Pro

[Steven]

A collection of stories written in the 30's, and therefore with long and drawn out text to get to a point or twist as the main goal of the story, which you would see much earlier in modern fiction.