Review
Scream Tease
The Sunday Times
25 November 1990
PETER JAMES finds something nasty between the covers
Masterclass of the Macabre (Weidenfeld £13) by Julian Lloyd Webber is designer literature, slickly packaged with an upmarket label. But the stories are seriously good, classy and nasty. No cheap baubles in here.
This is the horror genre at its best – dark, disturbing, literary.
Lloyd Webber has selected his favourite stories – a smart confection of stingers from both unknowns and quality writers including Marghanita Laski and Andrea Newman, cast against type.
The horror is mostly modern, mostly urban. Obsessions triumph over reason. Evil triumphs over good. Domestic pets give birth to monsters or eat their owners. Sweet babies murder their parents, quiet doctors prepare to kill their wives, a collector of novels collects their authors as well, and a widow keen on gardening can grow anything..


