The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable, man-made environment. Black as Darkness: Jack Wells drained his second can of ice-cold beer and waved away a fat bluebottle that had drifted lazily across his line of vision. The heat was tremendous. He couldn't remember a summer like it, or at least not since '76, or maybe '47.