Bobby Underwood’s Reviews > Blackout and Other Tales of Suspense > Status Update

Read Don't Dream On Midsummer's Eve and You'll Be Surprised. Just a bit to go and I'm finished with this one, and get back to Angel and Cordy and Faith.

Read The Cellar, closing in on the last few stories with this one.

Guessing on page count since I'm skipping around, but read White Cap and The Gilded Pupil. Both were fun, in an old-fashioned way.

Read Underground, a terrific little story with loads of atmosphere, a tricky plot, and some real danger, with a touch of romance thrown in. Ethel Lina White's short stories usually had more than one element, making them difficult to categorize as simply suspense or mystery or drama, slice of life or romance. The sign of a great storyteller to be able to blend it all in and make the stories seem bigger than they are.

Read Caged, a very good story where White manages to create atmosphere and setting, even emotions in a brief number of pages. Great stuff.

Read Lightning Strikes Twice. Really LOVED this one, which I'll talk about when I'm finished and post a review.

Read The Holiday, great stuff. Since I'm skipping around, I won't be doing page updates. Over half the stories read now I believe, and not a dud yet. That's what happens when it's a collection from a single writer of this talent and caliber.

Skipped ahead, read Catastrophe. Not a dud yet!

Read, Passengers, which was obviously the template for The Wheel Spins/The Lady Vanishes. Charming, with some fine moments. Not quite the level of suspense achieved in Woolrich's fabulous, All At Once, No Alice, but terrific in short story form nonetheless.

Read River Justice, skipped ahead and read the title story, Blackout, then returned for a re-read of Waxworks, a fabulous story I'd come across long ago. So good it was turned into the very good novel, Wax, which I reviewed here, but the story is perhaps even better in it's short form.