A shocking event on an evening train only revealed by hypnosis, a man driven to extremes to rid himself of nightmare neighbours, and a rural driving holiday stopped in its tracks by a mythical creature. Just three of the 13 Dark Tales, inspired by macabre urban myths and sinister folklore, in this first collection. Read them in the dark hours when they might call to mind a disturbing story you can’t quite place or a strange shape glimpsed from the corner of your eye; things you dismissed as too fantastic to take seriously but left nagging doubts, nonetheless. Some of them may be true.

I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the author.
13 Dark Tales is a collection of short stories from British author Michael R. Martin. Each story falls into one of three genres: thriller, horror or science fiction, each linked by the common theme that they are all dark in some way. The stories are well built given their brevity, and distinct enough from one another to not feel like they are all a similar tale.

Some short story collections are an unfortunate collection of stories that feel rushed or incomplete, but Martin has clearly put a lot of thought into this collection, ensuring he uses a vastly limited word count wisely to build characters, locations and the story themselves.

This made for a nice collection, with stories short enough to dip in and out of while also being thoroughly enjoyable and feeling every inch the product of the author; with all the tells his longer works have running throughout.

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