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Transgressions #7, 8, 10
Terror's Echo
Three never before published novellas from some of our very best crime writers, compiled and edited by Ed McBain.
Keller's Adjustment by Lawrence Block
Keller, everyone's favorite hit man, is back, dealing out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip across America.
The Ransome Women by John Farris
A young and beautiful artist is flattered when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome, offers her a modeling contract. Flattery turns to terror when she discovers the fate shared by Ransome's past subjects.
The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King
In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers when he begins finding the things they left behind.
©2005 Hui Corporation (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Keller's Adjustment by Lawrence Block
Keller, everyone's favorite hit man, is back, dealing out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip across America.
The Ransome Women by John Farris
A young and beautiful artist is flattered when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome, offers her a modeling contract. Flattery turns to terror when she discovers the fate shared by Ransome's past subjects.
The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King
In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers when he begins finding the things they left behind.
©2005 Hui Corporation (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Unknown Binding
First published April 28, 2005
1 person is currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Ed McBain
715 books671 followers"Ed McBain" is one of the pen names of American author and screenwriter Salvatore Albert Lombino (1926-2005), who legally adopted the name
Evan Hunter
in 1952.
While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.
He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, Evan Hunter, and Richard Marsten.
While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.
He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, Evan Hunter, and Richard Marsten.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 15, 2016
Three cracking good novellas from Transgressions by Lawrence Block, John Ferris, and Stephen King.
"Keller's Adjustment" by Lawrence Block: Keller, everyone's favorite hit man, is back—dealing out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip across America.
"The Ransome Women" by John Farris: A young and beautiful artist is flattered when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a modeling contract. Flattery turns to terror when she discovers the fate shared by Ransome's past subjects.
"The Things They Left Behind" by Stephen King: In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers—when he begins finding the things they left behind.
My favourite? The Stephen King. It was just a little eerier than the others.
"Keller's Adjustment" by Lawrence Block: Keller, everyone's favorite hit man, is back—dealing out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip across America.
"The Ransome Women" by John Farris: A young and beautiful artist is flattered when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a modeling contract. Flattery turns to terror when she discovers the fate shared by Ransome's past subjects.
"The Things They Left Behind" by Stephen King: In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers—when he begins finding the things they left behind.
My favourite? The Stephen King. It was just a little eerier than the others.
October 21, 2022
The problem with a compilation like this, especially three different stories from three different authors is that if one of them is bad it really pulls the rest down. And a lot of people are commenting here about the audiobook and I'm sorry that the audiobook reader was not a good reader. I experienced that as well, but only for the first book. First book was way rougher and he felt find after it. I had to basically turn the first book into background noise but I didn't really hate it either. Solid 4.5 stars for him reading some of these scenes because they did not pay him enough for the awful ones, woof!
I think throwing King in with other people often has a bizarre result. A lot of people come for Stephen King and a lot of people handle the other two, or three, or four writers and kind of go, "yeah they're good but they're no King". Might as well be throwing in another big name and seeing how the rest fair And I think if he -or other big names- weren't in the mix, some people wouldn't read it at all. Which isn't fair to the other authors but this is kind of how it works for some of them they get their exposure by being tacked on underneath King's name.
Now for each story.
Keller's story I did not care about.
He spends too much of it focused on himself to the point that I was unaware where he was at times. Him being a hitmen really didn't impress me. I feel like everybody writes hitmen the same way. It's a lot like bodyguards, once you've read one hitman you've read a hundred hitman stories. And once you've read a couple of bouncer and bodyguard stories you've read them all.
People don't seem to understand how to break this mold. And Lawrence Block is no different. For some reason he sticks tried and true to the type that we've read a hundred times now. No deviance whatsoever.
But of course, this somehow includes 9/11 being mentioned and reading like all hitmen tales around that time. I'm sorry, how about no.
Keller overthinks to the point of annoyance and I feel I'll repeat it too many times how much of a staple of hitmen stories this is. Hitmen are smart, but they're not savants gifted by God. Often they are normal people. Either way, incidents happen, and predictably, they involve the job.
A solid 2.5 or 3 stars. It's a take it or leave it. If you like hitmen, read it, if you're tired of them, skip it.
The Randsome Woman
So a lot of this really came off as he never realized the woman he was going to marry was who she was. A lot of "blushing virgin" talk comes from everyone else but the reality is she really throws herself into this. I'm not sure to feel bad about her because thus far she's happy and she's been told repeatedly that it's going to be bad.
She takes a sleeping pill and even gets eight hours of rest, a hot shower, so far it's more of a luxury than a horror. But she knows what is going to happen - or does she?
There is minor body horror, surgical disfigurement and the nastiness of how people treat someone who is a victim of a stroke, but it's not enough horror. Though there's facial slashing as well too. The lack of horror is definitely standing out more and more in this trilogy. Why have Terror in the title and not deliver?
John Randsome wants to "paint" Echo and Echo is constantly horny. She's aroused at the idea, and she's very obvious about her want. Meanwhile the paranoia eats away at Echo's fiance and he provides more terror than anything actually happening externally. But it's also not about the fiance in most any way. The line "like a slug out on a stick" really cracked me up instead of moving me.
There's a side plot of disfigurement and solving a repeating offender who mars the faces of women, but it's boring. It's very here or there. Plenty of body horror but it gets hit on the head by how everyone calls the women ugly and tells them they'll never be beautiful again. Eileen is especially brutal and upsetting as she works at the brothel and has to wear a mask to hide her face burned clean through to the bone and the teeth. It's some kind of connection between Randsome painting women(one of which was his cousin who he got pregnant while she was a minor and died later) and disfiguration or death upon the females he paints.
Some of the lines in this book is just oof, terrible. "I put my father's eyes out so he couldn't find me in the dark" okay? Weird ass final sentence before walking away from someone. What an exiting line. And before it the woman was described as "chewing upon her lip like a chipmunk" uh.
The story gets what feels like distracted but at the same time happening in the right place. There's fight scenes that just bust in, feeling like they're here to further pad this already way too fat story.
By the way, this middle story is almost the entirety of the audiobook experience so it draaaags. Can we go back to the hitman story which knew itself well enough to die a faster death please? How is this a trio of stories and not two smaller stories and one big one? This is a bloated consumption of potential and now I see where this is going, which means- (continued in next book).
2 stars.
My audiobook was full of multiple glitched words(counted thirteen seconds where it was static or a word skipped over at one point) and there were hard skips. Even without it, I'd probably have only given it 2 stars.
The Things They Left Behind
So it all makes sense what the purpose of this book group was. They indeed slapped Stephen King's name on there to milk things, and milk them hard! It's more like one novella and two short stories, but boy did they milk King's name being on it.
King's story is maybe under two hours, maybe. Edit: Out of this whole thing King's book is one hour and eleven minutes long. Such a sliver of the whole! Even the first one was far longer! Which is so pathetic. If I were to break this down the audiobook has 15 parts, the middle book is 5-15 in length. I shouldn't have to tell you how awful that is. We basically got a book nobody knew nothing about crammed down our throats. It was a terrible experience.
Now for the actual book.
Continuing on with the trilogy, this book fixates on 9/11, I've cracked the code on why these three are together. But while Randsome Woman is just gesturing at it between a murder mystery titty flashing, this one straight up talks about 9/11 a bit more humanely.
The Things mostly begins with a discussion about how our possessions can stop being possessed by us and instead objects that possess us instead. To quote Marina and the Diamonds: If you are not very careful, your possessions will possess you.
Objects begin to appear in a man's house, implied initially to be from the towers.
Although it sharply cuts to the main character masturbating with his sister's underwear wrapped around his dick how, uh, lovely to juxtaposition with that event.
"My mother once told me if a man wiped his ass and saw blood on the tissue his solution would be to shit in the dark for thirty days." King still delivers lines that are accurate and disturbing.
Something that stood out to me was certainly how well King nailed finding a therapist after 9/11. Finding one in the present day can take months to years, but after 9/11 it was brutal. King nails the desperation of trying to find help and how hard it is to get treated very well. The character's mental wellness -and unwellness- comes across very well too.
Another angle I enjoy is this tale is about a man who didn't go to work and die like everyone else he knew, and the survivor's guilt is visceral and good. But it's so short that in many ways I wish it was expanded upon. Why the items appear and where they come from. Is it a greater being or something like an aggravating leprechaun? It's so terribly unexplained and abruptly over that, I am slightly disappointed by it. But I do like the idea of returning items of dead loved ones to their living family members. It's scary with a wholesome ending.
But in a way his thinking to pass the objects onto other people and do what they do to him is horrifying. So I'm not entirely disappointed. I'm disappointed there's not more and that I handled two meh books to end on this one. But on its own this short story is solid. It's good. If I'd read it on its own, I would have been just fine with it.
A solid 3.5 stars.
So if we add up what each of these books rank:
2.5
2
and
3.5
Then the total isn't looking great.
King's book in many ways is the only one which carried, but I can't say it did that either, because it was the last book and thus it's measly hour was not enough nor worth the wait. Even if I was disappointed by everyone else, I knew King would be better, and then he was just snubbed.
2.5 stars. I don't suggest it beyond to pass the time by.
I think throwing King in with other people often has a bizarre result. A lot of people come for Stephen King and a lot of people handle the other two, or three, or four writers and kind of go, "yeah they're good but they're no King". Might as well be throwing in another big name and seeing how the rest fair And I think if he -or other big names- weren't in the mix, some people wouldn't read it at all. Which isn't fair to the other authors but this is kind of how it works for some of them they get their exposure by being tacked on underneath King's name.
Now for each story.
Keller's story I did not care about.
He spends too much of it focused on himself to the point that I was unaware where he was at times. Him being a hitmen really didn't impress me. I feel like everybody writes hitmen the same way. It's a lot like bodyguards, once you've read one hitman you've read a hundred hitman stories. And once you've read a couple of bouncer and bodyguard stories you've read them all.
People don't seem to understand how to break this mold. And Lawrence Block is no different. For some reason he sticks tried and true to the type that we've read a hundred times now. No deviance whatsoever.
But of course, this somehow includes 9/11 being mentioned and reading like all hitmen tales around that time. I'm sorry, how about no.
Keller overthinks to the point of annoyance and I feel I'll repeat it too many times how much of a staple of hitmen stories this is. Hitmen are smart, but they're not savants gifted by God. Often they are normal people. Either way, incidents happen, and predictably, they involve the job.
A solid 2.5 or 3 stars. It's a take it or leave it. If you like hitmen, read it, if you're tired of them, skip it.
The Randsome Woman
So a lot of this really came off as he never realized the woman he was going to marry was who she was. A lot of "blushing virgin" talk comes from everyone else but the reality is she really throws herself into this. I'm not sure to feel bad about her because thus far she's happy and she's been told repeatedly that it's going to be bad.
She takes a sleeping pill and even gets eight hours of rest, a hot shower, so far it's more of a luxury than a horror. But she knows what is going to happen - or does she?
There is minor body horror, surgical disfigurement and the nastiness of how people treat someone who is a victim of a stroke, but it's not enough horror. Though there's facial slashing as well too. The lack of horror is definitely standing out more and more in this trilogy. Why have Terror in the title and not deliver?
John Randsome wants to "paint" Echo and Echo is constantly horny. She's aroused at the idea, and she's very obvious about her want. Meanwhile the paranoia eats away at Echo's fiance and he provides more terror than anything actually happening externally. But it's also not about the fiance in most any way. The line "like a slug out on a stick" really cracked me up instead of moving me.
There's a side plot of disfigurement and solving a repeating offender who mars the faces of women, but it's boring. It's very here or there. Plenty of body horror but it gets hit on the head by how everyone calls the women ugly and tells them they'll never be beautiful again. Eileen is especially brutal and upsetting as she works at the brothel and has to wear a mask to hide her face burned clean through to the bone and the teeth. It's some kind of connection between Randsome painting women(one of which was his cousin who he got pregnant while she was a minor and died later) and disfiguration or death upon the females he paints.
Some of the lines in this book is just oof, terrible. "I put my father's eyes out so he couldn't find me in the dark" okay? Weird ass final sentence before walking away from someone. What an exiting line. And before it the woman was described as "chewing upon her lip like a chipmunk" uh.
The story gets what feels like distracted but at the same time happening in the right place. There's fight scenes that just bust in, feeling like they're here to further pad this already way too fat story.
By the way, this middle story is almost the entirety of the audiobook experience so it draaaags. Can we go back to the hitman story which knew itself well enough to die a faster death please? How is this a trio of stories and not two smaller stories and one big one? This is a bloated consumption of potential and now I see where this is going, which means- (continued in next book).
2 stars.
My audiobook was full of multiple glitched words(counted thirteen seconds where it was static or a word skipped over at one point) and there were hard skips. Even without it, I'd probably have only given it 2 stars.
The Things They Left Behind
So it all makes sense what the purpose of this book group was. They indeed slapped Stephen King's name on there to milk things, and milk them hard! It's more like one novella and two short stories, but boy did they milk King's name being on it.
King's story is maybe under two hours, maybe. Edit: Out of this whole thing King's book is one hour and eleven minutes long. Such a sliver of the whole! Even the first one was far longer! Which is so pathetic. If I were to break this down the audiobook has 15 parts, the middle book is 5-15 in length. I shouldn't have to tell you how awful that is. We basically got a book nobody knew nothing about crammed down our throats. It was a terrible experience.
Now for the actual book.
Continuing on with the trilogy, this book fixates on 9/11, I've cracked the code on why these three are together. But while Randsome Woman is just gesturing at it between a murder mystery titty flashing, this one straight up talks about 9/11 a bit more humanely.
The Things mostly begins with a discussion about how our possessions can stop being possessed by us and instead objects that possess us instead. To quote Marina and the Diamonds: If you are not very careful, your possessions will possess you.
Objects begin to appear in a man's house, implied initially to be from the towers.
Although it sharply cuts to the main character masturbating with his sister's underwear wrapped around his dick how, uh, lovely to juxtaposition with that event.
"My mother once told me if a man wiped his ass and saw blood on the tissue his solution would be to shit in the dark for thirty days." King still delivers lines that are accurate and disturbing.
Something that stood out to me was certainly how well King nailed finding a therapist after 9/11. Finding one in the present day can take months to years, but after 9/11 it was brutal. King nails the desperation of trying to find help and how hard it is to get treated very well. The character's mental wellness -and unwellness- comes across very well too.
Another angle I enjoy is this tale is about a man who didn't go to work and die like everyone else he knew, and the survivor's guilt is visceral and good. But it's so short that in many ways I wish it was expanded upon. Why the items appear and where they come from. Is it a greater being or something like an aggravating leprechaun? It's so terribly unexplained and abruptly over that, I am slightly disappointed by it. But I do like the idea of returning items of dead loved ones to their living family members. It's scary with a wholesome ending.
But in a way his thinking to pass the objects onto other people and do what they do to him is horrifying. So I'm not entirely disappointed. I'm disappointed there's not more and that I handled two meh books to end on this one. But on its own this short story is solid. It's good. If I'd read it on its own, I would have been just fine with it.
A solid 3.5 stars.
So if we add up what each of these books rank:
2.5
2
and
3.5
Then the total isn't looking great.
King's book in many ways is the only one which carried, but I can't say it did that either, because it was the last book and thus it's measly hour was not enough nor worth the wait. Even if I was disappointed by everyone else, I knew King would be better, and then he was just snubbed.
2.5 stars. I don't suggest it beyond to pass the time by.
August 17, 2019
I am so disappointed!
Keller's Adjustment by Lawrence Block - I was unfamiliar with Block's Keller so just wasn't impressed. I mean he was likable, but the story just... stopped. I don't care for that in most instances.
The Ransome Women by John Farris - This was just too cliche and trope from page one. I knew how it would end and was not surprised at anything revealed along the way. Echo was too... pure and perfect to appeal.
The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King - It hurts me to say it, but I just don't care for this story. I didn't care for it the first time I read it and I cared for it even less listening. King is my all time favorite, but even he can write a clunker. This was his.
Keller's Adjustment by Lawrence Block - I was unfamiliar with Block's Keller so just wasn't impressed. I mean he was likable, but the story just... stopped. I don't care for that in most instances.
The Ransome Women by John Farris - This was just too cliche and trope from page one. I knew how it would end and was not surprised at anything revealed along the way. Echo was too... pure and perfect to appeal.
The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King - It hurts me to say it, but I just don't care for this story. I didn't care for it the first time I read it and I cared for it even less listening. King is my all time favorite, but even he can write a clunker. This was his.
August 11, 2020
Three very different stories, but all good in their own ways. What I mostly liked about this was the novella-length stories. Just perfect, but so often overlooked in today’s publishing world, which seems to release short stories or novels.
February 18, 2016
3 short stories, all of them quite different and entertaining. First by Lawrence Block was good, as all the Keller stories are. The second was creepy and wierd, I thought one of the main characters was a little bit of a whiner. Third, the shortest, was too short, I wished it had been expanded.
September 24, 2022
I listened to this audio book. I did not enjoy the narrator; I didn’t like his female voice parodies in particular, but didn’t enjoy listening to his male voices either.
Keller’s Adjustment was irritating it was longer than necessary and ended in the middle of a conversation. I rewound to make sure I hadn’t missed something.
Ransome Women was predictable; we figure out there’s a situation with his models but nobody believes there is a connection. The girlfriend goes from a worldly virgin art critic to a seductress who doesn’t realize she is in a bad situation? Meh
I liked The Things They Left Behind as an eerie consideration that people want to be heard.
Keller’s Adjustment was irritating it was longer than necessary and ended in the middle of a conversation. I rewound to make sure I hadn’t missed something.
Ransome Women was predictable; we figure out there’s a situation with his models but nobody believes there is a connection. The girlfriend goes from a worldly virgin art critic to a seductress who doesn’t realize she is in a bad situation? Meh
I liked The Things They Left Behind as an eerie consideration that people want to be heard.
January 20, 2023
Didn't like the first one at all, but really liked the second one, The Ransom Women by John Ferris. I am going to look into more of his books as I had never read one before. Then there was Stephen King's and as always I wished it had been longer. I listened to the audio book, something I have really gotten into this year. Can listen while I am doing chores which I like! -These stories are all tied into 9-11 somehow, but Stephen's was the most tied in. If reading about anything relating to 9/11 upsets you, then skip his.
October 5, 2022
I enjoyed all 3 of these novellas, but I didn't find any of them to be particularly full of "terror", as the name ("Terror's Echo") would suggest. Instead, I found all 3 to be interesting, entertaining, and well written, but not terror-ful. I also don't see any real connection to the name of the larger volume that they were taken from: "Transgressions". Oh well.
March 3, 2023
AUDIOBOOK: After a DNF with another audiobook, I quickly just chose this one. 3 novellas by various authors. They were ok. I feel like they all kind of amounted to nothing, but kept me engaged enough for 8 hours.
January 17, 2019
Keller's story is from one of LB's books (Hit Parade?). It was fun to read for second time. Terror's echo is just about ok.
May 27, 2008
The characters in the first story turned me off, so I skipped to the second, which was was about an artist whose models were all brutally attacked after they finished posing for him. It was predictable and the characters were stereotypes (NYC cop, Irish Catholic girlfriend, gay art critic, emo artist, creepy artist's sidekick), but it held my attention for a little while. The third and final story was Stephen King's, "Things They Left Behind" about ghosts of the victims of the Sept. 11th attacks. Normally I love his short stories, but this one really fell flat.
January 25, 2012
Very interesting stories. Of course, it was the Stephen King short story that affected me emotionally.
July 14, 2015
2.5 It only got that because the middle story was the best of all and held my attention, the other two seemed to have no point or substance.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews