GIALLO FANTASTIQUE
Ross E. Lockhart, ed.
Word Horde
Giallo – the typically Italian mix of sex and violence, thriller and horror, pulp and art – gets a mostly Americanized tribute in this new anthology from editor Ross E. Lockhart. With the recent resurgence of giallo movie homages (Amer, Berberian Sound Studio, Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, The Editor), the time is right for the book world to go back to the subgenre’s (sub)literary roots. The concept, therefore, is great; the results, alas, are mostly middling
Some of the stories are decent but have little or nothing to do with giallo, such as “The Communion of Saints” by John Langan, an above-average police procedural about a series of horror-film-inspired killings that is spoiled by a lazy finale. Cameron Pierce’s “Balch…