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The Case of the Bleeding Wall
This long new novella, part of the Dana Roberts series of supernatural investigator stories, is limited to only 500 numbered copies signed by both authors.
92 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2016
34 people want to read
About the author
Joe R. Lansdale
826 books3,910 followersChampion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.
He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 25, 2016
When supernormal investigator Dana Robertson invites her to Italy to work on a case, Jana immediately accepts. Now she just has to avoid being killed in The Case of the Bleeding Wall...
I got some interesting goodies in the 2016 Subterranean Press Grab-Bag and this one was one of the more compelling ones. Mister Mojo and his daughter collaborating on novella?
It's a pretty seamless collaboration as it turns out. Dana Robertson's prim and proper nature contrasts nicely with Jana, her Watson, a Texas country girl. The Lansdale humor is in full effect, with gems such as "It's hotter than a goat's ass in a pepper batch."
The case seemed pretty straightforward at first. Dana's ex has a mansion that incorporates some ancient ruins and happens to be haunted. Isn't that always the case? Anyway, things weren't on the up and up and Dana and Jana have to do some magic to save the day. Even though I was certain neither of the leads would die, things got pretty tense.
The Case of the Bleeding Wall was a fun novella to read on a gloomy Sunday morning. I wouldn't mind reading more of Dana Robertson's supernormal adventures. 3 out of 5 stars.
I got some interesting goodies in the 2016 Subterranean Press Grab-Bag and this one was one of the more compelling ones. Mister Mojo and his daughter collaborating on novella?
It's a pretty seamless collaboration as it turns out. Dana Robertson's prim and proper nature contrasts nicely with Jana, her Watson, a Texas country girl. The Lansdale humor is in full effect, with gems such as "It's hotter than a goat's ass in a pepper batch."
The case seemed pretty straightforward at first. Dana's ex has a mansion that incorporates some ancient ruins and happens to be haunted. Isn't that always the case? Anyway, things weren't on the up and up and Dana and Jana have to do some magic to save the day. Even though I was certain neither of the leads would die, things got pretty tense.
The Case of the Bleeding Wall was a fun novella to read on a gloomy Sunday morning. I wouldn't mind reading more of Dana Robertson's supernormal adventures. 3 out of 5 stars.
September 11, 2016
Not at all familure with "The Cases of Dana Roberts" I did some research and found that Mr. Lansdale has been creating this series over the years. This the newest installment is just a bit of fun and worth seeking out to those die hard fans of Mr. Lansdale or his daughter.
An earlier installment (which I have not read) is a trade paperback edition released in 2011.. The chapbook was meant to accompany the signed/limited edition of "Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2" those who purchased that particular edition received one which was titled "The Cases of Dana Roberts".
Another is "The Case of the Stalking Shadow" and is available to read here :
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
Another installment titled "The Case of the Angry Traveler " can be found in the book "Impossible Monsters" edited by Kasey Lansdale also released by Subterranean Press this in 2013.
The book is a haunted house story that is fast moving and should appeal to fans of Mr. Lansdale.
I'm sure these will all be collected one day and made available in a single edition.
An earlier installment (which I have not read) is a trade paperback edition released in 2011.. The chapbook was meant to accompany the signed/limited edition of "Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2" those who purchased that particular edition received one which was titled "The Cases of Dana Roberts".
Another is "The Case of the Stalking Shadow" and is available to read here :
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
Another installment titled "The Case of the Angry Traveler " can be found in the book "Impossible Monsters" edited by Kasey Lansdale also released by Subterranean Press this in 2013.
The book is a haunted house story that is fast moving and should appeal to fans of Mr. Lansdale.
I'm sure these will all be collected one day and made available in a single edition.
August 29, 2021
Short Lansdale piece that perhaps seemed to be building to something bigger, but reached a conclusion pretty quickly and likely didn’t warrant further exploration at the series level. A fair read.
February 11, 2017
The Case of the Bleeding Wall is the fourth in a small series known as The Casebooks of Dana Roberts. This is the first book in the series, though, since the first three stories were just short stories that appeared in magazines and anthologies. Before I read this book, I tracked down the short stories that preceded it and read them in the order of their publication, and I figured I would review them all in bulk.
The first is "The Case of the Lighthouse Shambler", which is an odd introduction of the character. The story, about her and her two associates investigating a ghost in a lighthouse, is short, so it fels fast and undeveloped, and Dana doesn't feel like a fully realized character. It doesn't help that the story is told with a framing device, where she attends a meeting of a secret society to share her story about the ghost. It seems unnecessary, especially since we only get enough from that device to establish the society, and that it doesn't play into the larger story. Dana's way of speaking feels stilted and unnatural, too, which didn't help. It's missing a lot of the narrative flair that one would expect from a Lansdale story.
The next story is "The Case of the Stalking Shadow", which also has the framing device, though Lansdale spends less time on it. This story is about when Dana was thirteen and had one of her first experiences with the supernormal. The story isn't as brief as "Shambler", so we get to see more of Dana's character, and there were some genuinely creepy moments there. It was a step above the first story, though the ending did feel a bit rushed (though I'm starting to see that a lot in Lansdale's shorter works).
The third story, "The Case of the Angry Traveler", is just ridiculous. Lansdale uses that same framing device, this time reducing it to one or two paragraphs at the beginning of the story, and one or two at the end. It feels like he's putting it in there because he used in the first two stories, because it feels even less useful than it did in the first two stories. And don't get me started on the premise of this story. What starts out as a haunting in a subterranean city (think Underground Atlanta) turns into an eye-roll of an experience.
All of that leads into The Case of the Bleeding Wall, which is a much better story than the three preceding it. It helps that this is a full-length novella instead of just a short story, but it also helps that the Lansdales drop the framing device all together. Whoever narrated the previous three stories doesn't exist here, though the society does. This time, a woman in the society, Jana, is our narrator, and she pulls Dana aside after one of her events to see if she can help her with her own haunting. Since Jana is narrating, her voice carries the story, and we start to see some of Lansdale's trademark style creep in through her, since she's from Texas. Neither Dana's nor Jana's story are the focus of the novella, since they only serve as a way to bring the two together. Once Jana's story is resolved, Dana hires her to help her on a case that takes her to Italy. There, they encounter the titular bleeding wall, and the adventure that carries the story begins.
Since this is a rating of just this novella and not the entire series, I'll refrain from marking it down for the preceding stories, but it's hard to recommend reading just this book without reading all the stories. None of the events from the preceding stories affect this one, but it helps to have that larger picture before going straight into the book. If the Lansdales continue writing the books in the style of the novella, though, then I'm on board.
The first is "The Case of the Lighthouse Shambler", which is an odd introduction of the character. The story, about her and her two associates investigating a ghost in a lighthouse, is short, so it fels fast and undeveloped, and Dana doesn't feel like a fully realized character. It doesn't help that the story is told with a framing device, where she attends a meeting of a secret society to share her story about the ghost. It seems unnecessary, especially since we only get enough from that device to establish the society, and that it doesn't play into the larger story. Dana's way of speaking feels stilted and unnatural, too, which didn't help. It's missing a lot of the narrative flair that one would expect from a Lansdale story.
The next story is "The Case of the Stalking Shadow", which also has the framing device, though Lansdale spends less time on it. This story is about when Dana was thirteen and had one of her first experiences with the supernormal. The story isn't as brief as "Shambler", so we get to see more of Dana's character, and there were some genuinely creepy moments there. It was a step above the first story, though the ending did feel a bit rushed (though I'm starting to see that a lot in Lansdale's shorter works).
The third story, "The Case of the Angry Traveler", is just ridiculous. Lansdale uses that same framing device, this time reducing it to one or two paragraphs at the beginning of the story, and one or two at the end. It feels like he's putting it in there because he used in the first two stories, because it feels even less useful than it did in the first two stories. And don't get me started on the premise of this story. What starts out as a haunting in a subterranean city (think Underground Atlanta) turns into an eye-roll of an experience.
All of that leads into The Case of the Bleeding Wall, which is a much better story than the three preceding it. It helps that this is a full-length novella instead of just a short story, but it also helps that the Lansdales drop the framing device all together. Whoever narrated the previous three stories doesn't exist here, though the society does. This time, a woman in the society, Jana, is our narrator, and she pulls Dana aside after one of her events to see if she can help her with her own haunting. Since Jana is narrating, her voice carries the story, and we start to see some of Lansdale's trademark style creep in through her, since she's from Texas. Neither Dana's nor Jana's story are the focus of the novella, since they only serve as a way to bring the two together. Once Jana's story is resolved, Dana hires her to help her on a case that takes her to Italy. There, they encounter the titular bleeding wall, and the adventure that carries the story begins.
Since this is a rating of just this novella and not the entire series, I'll refrain from marking it down for the preceding stories, but it's hard to recommend reading just this book without reading all the stories. None of the events from the preceding stories affect this one, but it helps to have that larger picture before going straight into the book. If the Lansdales continue writing the books in the style of the novella, though, then I'm on board.
September 3, 2016
I don't read a lot of horror books, and I don't read a lot of books featuring female teenage protagonists, so why would I read this book? Well, mostly for the reason that it appeared on my doorstep one day and demanded to be read... and so I have.
Honestly, though, it's not a bad book at all. It is short and too the point, and the prose is swift and with a little dash of comedy, enough so that you don't get bored or take the plot too serious. Will I read it again? Probably not, but I can certainly appreciate that within its genre, it's not bad at all and so deserves a fair treatment.
As for the story, don't expect a big plot, it's about two women who is on a supernatural, eh... sorry... SUPERNORMAL case in Italy, trying to figure out what is going on inside a haunted house. There is a few twists and turns that will keep you on edge, but really... it is pretty straightforward.
Honestly, though, it's not a bad book at all. It is short and too the point, and the prose is swift and with a little dash of comedy, enough so that you don't get bored or take the plot too serious. Will I read it again? Probably not, but I can certainly appreciate that within its genre, it's not bad at all and so deserves a fair treatment.
As for the story, don't expect a big plot, it's about two women who is on a supernatural, eh... sorry... SUPERNORMAL case in Italy, trying to figure out what is going on inside a haunted house. There is a few twists and turns that will keep you on edge, but really... it is pretty straightforward.
April 26, 2020
As a horror novella, this one was,tidy and fast
Excessive descriptions coupled with lack of action had dragged the book in the middle. Then it speeded up, as if on turbo (or holy water), towards the end.
Still, I would not have given more than three stars. But our protagonist's (NOT Dana Roberts) sense of humour compelled me to add one more.
Recommended.
Excessive descriptions coupled with lack of action had dragged the book in the middle. Then it speeded up, as if on turbo (or holy water), towards the end.
Still, I would not have given more than three stars. But our protagonist's (NOT Dana Roberts) sense of humour compelled me to add one more.
Recommended.
July 31, 2024
A bite-sized chapter in the saga of Dana Roberts. Kasey Lansdale and her dad leave characterization for the other stories, and focus on a specific case in Italy. One of Dana's ex'es has hired her to figure out what's going on with the creepy old wall that he built his new house around. Is it a setup? Truth is, he's still pining for his dead wife.
February 2, 2017
This short novella is part supernatural detective story and part you need to have bought and loved – cherished really – a whoopee cushion in the past six months to think its funny. (It is also one of a series. If you’ve read and liked others in the series, you can skip the rest of this review.) Whatever good can be said about this bleeding wall (the writing is crisp and fast, the major beats of the plot are solid) is buried under poorly timed slapstick humor and one of the more annoying protagonists I’ve ever read about. Some comparisons: imagine the crackerjack jokes (that’s sarcasm) from the Schwarzenegger film Commando mixed with the angsty stylings of a WB witch show. If that means nothing, imagine the Evil Dead, but not funny or scary and instead of Ash, its Bea Arthur. Actually, that sounds decent… hmm. Anyway, obviously this book just didn’t work for me. Seems like some people are liking it, most even, so if you’re a fan of this type of silliness, then maybe give it a try. That said, I haven’t read anything by these authors except for a handful of Joe R. Lansdale short stories (all of which I’ve pretty well-liked, and none of which bare any resemblance to this). I’ve seen the film Bubbahotep, which on the surface, fits into a similar slapstick supernatural mold, but I really liked it. I own the DVD. I told people to see it. So my dislike of this book isn’t because I’m a hater of all fun, I’m not. This just fell flat. It felt like the authors were trying way too hard. Or even worse, like they wrote a semi-decent short story and then went back and plugged in all these throwaway lines to puff it up and make it funny. The result is a total mess and a definite pass.
September 30, 2016
It's a Lansdale book--- it has to be great.
January 28, 2026
A slim limited edition featuring Dana Roberts, occult detective, and her wisecracking Dr. Watson, Jana. Economic and endearing. A cozy mystery for people who read horror.
April 10, 2017
An enjoyable but not totally satisfying read. It walks that line between humor and paranormal fairly well, but as it's only a novella in length, I felt it came off a bit slight. It seems to be an introduction of sorts to an upcoming series about Dana Roberts (a renown psychic investigator and her newly found assistant, Jana (a fish out of water in this realm.) It has some truly funny lines and moments, and I would consider reading the next (hopefully novel length) escapade. It's has a bit of the Nancy Drew meets Scooby Doo thing going for it, which is not a bad thing at all.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews