As a fan of all things supernatural, I can say with confidence that there are not many authors in the horror genre who consistently write at the level of Josh Malerman. BIRD BOX made Malerman a global sensation and was adapted into two Netflix films. He has continued to up the ante with each new release and now has given us a series of unsetting novellas collected in his latest book, SPIN A BLACK YARN.

With the exception of the first piece, which clearly has some classic supernatural elements, these tales are more about human beings and their frailties, secrets and the tragic endings that result from them. These are stories stripped to the skin rather than the bone, like pure horror can do, and instead shows off Malerman’s creative mind by allowing his speculative side to take the wheel and steer the plotlines into often dark and unchartered territory.

Let’s talk about these novellas in order of appearance:

"SPIN A BLACK YARN is a voyage into the dark side of the human soul as only Josh Malerman could conceive."

“Half the House Is Haunted”: Stephanie and her brother, Robin, have a very unique relationship. It is colored with terror and fear mostly brought on by Stephanie, who at age eight tells her six-year-old brother that half of their massive house is haunted. She teases him, scares him, and at times appears to change her own physical appearance to keep him off balance. Could he be imagining all of this? Robin is sure that he didn’t think up the nude woman in the pink bedroom who terrorized him for the rest of his life. We get to see Stephanie and Robin as adults, but still with an unspoken connection to the terror from their childhood that never seems to have released them.

“Argyle”: Shawn Hasbro is on his deathbed, with his family and closest friends surrounding him, and he doesn’t have much time left. No one can determine if it is his addled brain ruined by the illness that is draining his lifeforce or a deathbed confession, but suddenly Shawn begins to break out of his normal mild-mannered demeanor and spout tales about lust, desire and murder --- all of which he claims to have gotten away with. Neither his wife nor his children can accept any of this. When he talks about a partner in crime who none of them have ever heard of, a woman named Argyle, the situation gets really creepy. Then Argyle shows up at Shawn’s bedside.

“Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer™”: In perhaps the most absurd and bizarre tale in this collection, a quirky and unfriendly couple are sold the latest and greatest appliance for their home with no idea how it will change their lives forever. I don’t want to give away any of the insane fun that results from this contraption. Let’s just say that the House Washer™ does more than just wash Doug and Judy’s house from top to bottom, and what it unearths may be too horrific for them to face.

“The Jupiter Drop”: Bathed in science fiction, this story features a futuristic tourist who has purchased a seat on a special shuttle that will drop through the atmosphere of the planet Jupiter and onto its surface. It’s not the g-forces that get to Steve on the way down; it’s the surreal imagery and strange hallucinations that turn his trip into a nightmare and threaten his life in ways he never expected.

“Egorov”: The last and perhaps most brutal tale of the bunch involves a sadistic bully who takes the life of a young man. Little does he know that his victim was a triplet, and the two surviving brothers devise a revenge plot that has the killer seeing ghosts and wishing he were dead long before they are finished with him.

Each tale also has a connection to the fictional city of Samhattan, which provides a nice underlying feeling of territoriality to the collection and makes for an even more engaging read. SPIN A BLACK YARN is a voyage into the dark side of the human soul as only Josh Malerman could conceive.