Book Box: Spooky tales
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SINGAPORE – In this week’s Book Box, The Straits Times looks at three books of horror. Buy the books at Amazon
Book review: Pink Slime by Fernanda Trias is set in a post-apocalyptic port city of poison
In a port city where toxic algae in the water results in a deadly red wind that infects anyone it touches, an unnamed woman waits for an ambiguous end.
Uruguayan author Fernanda Trias’ dystopian novel won a slew of Latin-American literary awards and has now been translated from Spanish into English by Heather Cleary.
It is an unnerving read, pervaded by a creeping dread both environmental and emotional, as the narrator clings to life in a city that is being slowly poisoned.
Book review: The Devil’s Playground dives into 1920s Hollywood and the occult
The Devil’s Playground was said to be the greatest silent horror film, shrouded in rumours of a curse that led to its destruction before anyone could watch it.
When its lead actress Norma Carlton dies of an apparent suicide, studio fixer Mary Rourke covers it up before realising she unwittingly becomes an accessory to murder.
Tasked to find the truth behind Norma’s death, Mary uncovers strange connections to the occult and worse secrets than what she has helped hide.
Book review: House of horrors in Simone St James’ Silence For The Dead tackles post-war trauma
Barely 20 years old, Kitty Weekes thinks she has pulled off a coup when she secures a job as a nurse at isolated Portis House with no relevant experience.
But any sense of victory quickly goes out the window when she is asked to scrub a toilet that periodically secretes strange black goo.
Suddenly, the hospital-wide ban on smoking that she had found so offensive when she was inducted seems the least of her problems.
From Canadian mystery writer Simone St James comes this fun tale set in a convalescence house for World War I soldiers in England, 1919.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers August 5
This week’s bestsellers include sales from new indie bookstore Book Bar.
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