Darrell Brown

Darrell H. Brown's 13 Twisted Tales allows the reader to dip into one or two surprising short-short stories to quickly take the edge off a stressful day. One could read all thirteen in one sitting, easily, but I believe tales like these are best appreciated when read at intervals. It is possible that the surprise twist endings could be less entertaining when taken en masse.

The endings are truly twisted, some in ironic ways, some in truly unexpected, surreal ways. I wasn't able to anticipate any of them. The one that stays in my mind is terrifying, as well as having a very unexpected closure. It's titled “Down Came the Rain . . . ,“ and as you might expect, it features a spider, a huge brown wolf spider. Aaaaah!

That story is also longer than most, at 13 pages, in this collection – all previously published in vehicles like Tales from Wonder and Woe. Some of the other stories would benefit from being longer, to build the situation and suspense. Nevertheless, it's an anthology which lets the reader “do the twist,” and who doesn't want that?

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (més)

This was an audible original and the narration and background were just horrendous. There was constant background sounds (probably like a newspaper office) and if there weren't those sounds they had music playing. This interfered with my hearing the words--which were not by professional narrators-but by reporters. This was more like a documentary than rather than book. I returned the book to Audible because it was so bad. This was the story of Suzanne Pilley's disappearance in Edinburgh in 2010 and the subsequent conviction of David Gilroy. Gilroy was convicted on circumstantial evidence. The reporters found nothing new--after all that struggle to listen!… (més)