The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists

Norman Partridge keeps writing stuff that can't miss. I continue to highly enjoy the collections of short stories that he writes and has pulled together. This is another one where it's hard to find a bad story. The worst I can say is that some of them were simply OK and not real good or great. Enjoyable but not packing in that punch. I was also kind of spoiled with his collection MR. FOX AND OTHER FERAL TALES in that he wrote a biographical blurb before each story. Here we only get an Introduction and then a bibliography of his completed works. I suppose it allows us to focus on the stories but they were missed. It was nice to go through a streak of stories; we had three or four desert stories followed by some Las Vegas stories, all show more preceded by some soldier stories. My favorites are below minus some stories which I've already called out as favorites in other collections.

"Do Not Hasten To Bid Me Adieu" - A western story about a romantic cowboy marrying his vampire girlfriend.

"The Pack" - A werewolf is jailed in a small western town.

"Blackbirds" - A young boy discovers the souls of everyone in town is being sucked into hell to feed a demon and decides to stop it.

"Wrong Turn" - An actor's son tries to live off his father's coattails.

"Carne Muerta" - A drug lord gets revenge on the man sleeping with his wife. There is a twist at the end of this story that I should have seen coming but didn't. show less

Norman Partridge is the one of the finest writers of short horror fiction going. The Man With The Barbed Wire Fists is his third and best collection. It even excited this long time fan. This quote from the Washington Post says it all: “[a talent] as crazy as a scorpion on a red-hot skillet– and twice as dangerous.” You’ve been warned!