Is there a filmmaker whose name automatically comes to mind when it comes to suspense? Alfred Hitchcock, of course.
I had recently edited a couple of anthologies, featuring brand new stories inspired by the works of two of my favourite writers: respectively Cornell Woolrich and J.G. Ballard, and my thoughts had moved on to what to do next. I had come across a surprising amount of enthusiasm from fellow authors when I announced both these projects, such was the crime and SF community’s admiration for the authors. Chandler and Hammett had been ’done’ so it occurred to me to move my direction towards the movies and, naturally, Hitchcock came first and foremost.
After all hadn’t so many of his films been adapted from existing novels and stories: in no particular order, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Daphne Du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Jack Trevor Story, Winston Graham, David Dodge, Boileau-Narcejac, Agatha Christie, Cornell Woolrich, Robert Bloch, John Buchan, Ethel Lina White, Joseph Conrad, Francis Iles, Leon Uris, Francis Beeding, Arthur LaBern; add plays by Charles Bennett and Patrick Hamilton, and the script for THE BIRDS penned by Evan Hunter (Ed McBain). This was a director with a love for the printed word and capable of transmuting words into screen magic.
Many of the above sources of inspiration came from the crime and thriller field, but not exclusively, so when I went shopping for potential contributors to an anthology of tales inspired by Hitch and his movies, I was determined to cast my net suitably further afield. Phone calls and emails went out and very soon I was yet again deluged with enthusiastic offers of collaboration, including writer friends better associated with the film world, but also novelists in their own right, like important movie critics David Thomson, Anne Billson, Guy Adams and Xan Brooks, the ever protean Jeff Noon was also an indispensable port of call as was mainstream author Sam Mills, author of the unique THE WATERMARK, which betrays a wonderful love of film, and who is now amusingly enough writing thrillers as Lily Samson (and her story ‘Hitchcock Blondes Have More Fun’ is an insider’s delight).
The stories that landed in my in-box proved a delight and they will, I am confident, charm readers whether they are directly inspired by specific Hitchcock films, sometimes obvious with Peter Swanson’s mischievous ‘Strangers on a School Bus’, devious like M.W. Craven’s ‘The Migratory Pattern of Birds’, or presented as meta screenplays like the late Peter Lovesey’s ‘Killing Hitch’ which, sadly, he completed just a few weeks before he died, or again Donna Moore’s witty story ‘Cameo’, inspired by Hitch’s tradition of making such fleeting appearances in his own movies. You can even turn the book into a parlour game, on the basis of which movie inspired which story! Or, as there are 24 tales, use it as an advent book from December 1st, allowing yourself to read just a story a day, and making the pleasure of reading the book last longer!
There are stories by British, American, Icelandic and Portuguese writers, multi-bestselling ‘names’ like Lee Child, Vaseem Khan, Sophie Hannah, S.A. Cosby, Ragnar Jonasson, Denise Mina and so many more. What more can you ask for? Don’t let the suspense kill you and rush out and buy a copy of what might turn out to be one of my favourite anthologies.
And what might come next? Well there is that screen character best known for wearing a bowler hat and using a cane…
Birds, Strangers and Psychos is published by No Exit Press
