Status Updates From Birds, Strangers and Psycho...

ARLENE by William Boyle ★★★★

I admire the way this started so firmly grounded in an almost mundane reality and then slowly slid first into grief and pain, then into transgression an finally into something almost supernaturally strange. The control of pace and tone was excellent.

THE FALCON HOTEL by Nadine Matheson ★★★

This story captures the sense of dislocation that I often experienced in airport hotels; of being in a bubble that sealed off from the world. It builds on this to create a sense of threat and finally fear that arises partly from the situation and partly from the slowly dawning realisation that the main character may have lost her grip on reality.

CHEST by Ragnar Jónasson ★★★

Short but suprisingly tense. An homage to Hitchcock where the suspense came in part from knowing Hitchcock's films.

RUSSIAN HILL Jerome Charyn ★★

A hard-boiled tale with a complex plot with a couple of clever twists. A strong sense of place (San Francisco in a time when men stll wore Fedora's) but the I'm-too-cool-to show-any-emotion movie voice-over style of storytelling meant I didn't connect with any of the people in the story.

PRIVATE BROWSER by A K Benedict ★★★★

If there was a 2025 version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, this story would be perfect for it. The plot was clever. The ending was a surprise. The people felt real. I liked that it was a very up-to-the-minute take on murder and finding a killer.

EMPIRE BUILDER by James Grady ★

An experiment with form.

With comedic intent.

That went on...

...far too long.

CAMEO by Donna Moore ★★★

Nicely crafted for this anthology, this story is about a filandering film director, who is carefull NOT called Hitchcock. I liked the tough-cookie character of the vengeful wife, mixed with humorous Hitchcock-related crossword clues, a demonstration of the difference between thriller and suspense and clever ending that I didn't see coming.

THE MIGRATORY PATTERN OF BIRDS by M W Craven ★★★

This had the feeling of a Washington Poe Christmas special with a nod to 'Frenzy'. I haven't read the Washington Poe books (I've been put off by people being burned alive in the first one) but that didn't stop m enjoying this story. It was light, fast, ingenious and amusing.

THE NEST by Jeff Noon ★★★

This was original and creepy but a little too long and, for me, too far-fetched to be engaging.

HITCHCOCK PRESENTS by Kim Newman ★★★

This was fun. I loved the dual meaning of the title, the way the main character's job as a lecturer in film provided me with an education in Hitchcock movies while also ratcheting up the tension with each parcel that arrived. It was told with a light touch and at just the right pace.

THE MARK by Anne Bilson ★★★★★

Great first line: "On the whole, he preferred not to have to kill them, but sometimes it was necessary." Dark, clever, orignal and surprising, it was everything Hitchcock was at his best. The surface glittered but everything beneath was corrupt. I loved the calm, quiet cruelty of the ending.

KILLING HITCH by Peter Lovesey

I abandoned this one. I can see that the script format is appropriate to something Hitchcock-inspired but it's not engaging which me the, I-know-you-don't-know-what's-going-on-here-but-trust-me pitch harder to land.

COAT CHECK by Keith Lansdale & Joe R. Lansdale ★★★★

A mistake by a coatcheck girl at a restaurant is all it takes for the lives of these violent, always-looking-for-an-edge men to unravel. I liked the chaos of it and the feeling of self-imposed doom. Not to mention the open grave in the dark of the night and a small clever twist at the end, like a knife turning in flesh.

HICTCHCOCK BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN by Lily Samson★★★★★

A bizarre idea, beautifully executed. It kept me engaged and it kept me guessing. I got some fascinating background on Hitchcock and a story the became more disturbing as it went along.

THE MOUNTAIN EAGLE by Xan Brooks ★★★

This tale held me all the way through. It had the feel of a story written in the early 20th Century, when it was set, but with a 21st Century sensibility. Perhaps that's why the 20th Century ending I was expecting didn't happen. Perhaps that was the point.

THE KARPMAN DRAMA TRIANGLE by Denise Mina ★★★★★

This was excellent. In a single, short video call, Denise Mina told the story of a dysfunctional family AND delivered a tense drama. She even cleverly used the roles in the Karpman Drama Triangle to do it. I'm impressed.

THE BIRDS ON A TRAIN by Lee Child ★★
I liked the set-up of the story: the train journey, the arrival at Hastings, the establishment of the kind of man our assassin for hire was. I wanted to see where it was going to go. Then there was a sudden, unexpected event and a rapid and unexpected ending. The ending was amusing in the context of an Hitchcock-inspired story, but it felt too rushed for me.

LIKE A BUN AT BEWLEY'S by David Thomson ★

I must be missing something. This story made no sene to me. It was like listening to a guy in the pub who thinks he's a raconteur but who keeps losing the thread, adding more swagger than story. I couldn't figure out which Hitchcock movie or TV episode it was inspired by or what the ending meant.