I really enjoyed this one. There are 5 stories.........2 shorts, 2 are more like novellas, the last one is a novel. Overall, this is a really good collection of work by Farris. The stories and my ratings are as follows:

The odor of violets: Pretty good 3 stars
Horrorshow: Great 4 stars
I scream...You scream....We all scream for ice cream: Great 4 stars
Scare tactics: meh....ok 2.5 stars
The Guardians: Pretty good....drags abit 3 stars ( )

I'm giving this a three-star for the three middle stories, all of which I enjoyed. But the first, The Odor of Violets (a very short story) and the last one, The Guardians (the last half of the book), did nothing for me.

I'm quickly learning that when Farris is on, he's on. But when he's off, man, is he off.

An okay collection and, thankfully, much than the last book I read from him, the very awful [b:Shatter|1942460|Shatter|John Farris|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328322303s/1942460.jpg|1945082]. ( )

The first short story in this book is called "The Odor of Violets". It is about a struggling author who steals the final manuscript of a best-selling author who has recently died. He publishes the manuscript under his own name, as his 'newest' book and is subsequently haunted by the muse of the author whose work he stole.

The second story, "Horrorshow", is about a small southern town which is being terrorized by a psychotic and sadistic murderer. A psychic is wrongly accused of a teenager's murder and teams up with her ghost to find the real killer and clear his name.

The third story is a novella, originally published in 1964. "The Guardians" is about a governor's son who narrowly escapes death after a series of supposed accidents. The governor's son soon learns that he is the target of his father's many political and personal rivals.

I enjoyed this book, although it was by no means my favorite. I really enjoyed the first two stories, but found that the novella was the weaker story. I found myself compelled to finished the book because I had enjoyed the first two stories and was curious to see how the novella ended. Overall, I give this book an A! ( )