Macabre Menagerie by C.L. Clark is a twisted compilation of short stories ranging from the frightening to the downright bizarre. The collection begins with “Under Your Skin,” a tale of a woman caught out staring at a twitching stranger on a train, only to be confronted with a similar condition after arriving home. As the stories continue, the reader is confronted with their own mortality in “Coffee and a Slice,” where a man converses with a stranger in a café over pie and coffee about the meaning of life and the sadness that comes along with it. There is a story of a little boy who trades places with a monster in “The Pitch,” but one comes out better than the other. Finally, the collection concludes with a vicious depiction of revenge by a psychopathic dentist in “Open Wide.”

I found many of the tales in Miss Clark’s collection different, but not necessarily completely out of the ordinary when it comes to the realm of horror. “The Pitch” reminded me of a children’s story entitled “Where the Wild Things Are.” I found that this was one of my favorite stories in the book. I liked how the tables turned on the little monster. Snip thought he was getting the good life, but that was not the case. “Coffee and a Slice” was another favorite of mine. I felt it was very emotional and meaningful, showing the reader not to fear death, but merely succumb to it at the right time. There was one story I did not enjoy as much as the others and that was “The Step.” The story felt incomplete to me and lacked the impact of the others in the collection. Overall though, Macabre Menagerie is an enticing read that's sure to make you think.

Macabre Menagerie is a horror short story collection written by C.L. Clark. There are 12 short stories which stand alone but they all contain veins of horror and dark humor. A traveler on a train, in Under Your Skin, is a bit too intolerant of her fellow passengers and finds out first-hand why Mr. Twitchy keeps jumping around in his seat and scratching. In The Pitch, a lonely, young hemophiliac trades places with a being in his mirror. The Bivouac follows Tango Squad’s lone survivors in Vietnam as they try to recover from an ambush. A killer stalks a young pianist and plans his assault in A Tasty Morsel, and he gets an entirely different result than he anticipated.

C.L. Clark’s horror collection, Macabre Menagerie, is a delightfully dark group of stories that start off innocently enough and then go strange on the reader. They reminded me a lot of the stories in the Twilight Zone series and the Weird Tales comics of the past. Clark’s writing is smooth and polished, and the stories are highly atmospheric with just slightly heard mocking laughter in the background. You did expect that with a title like Macabre Menagerie, didn’t you? I loved the noir style of Coffee and a Slice and the edginess of The Bivouac, but my favorite story by far is The Pitch. It’s marvelous and worth the cost of the entire book, but don’t just read that one. They’re all superbly eldritch and dark and fantastic, and that laughter in the background… Macabre Menagerie is most highly recommended.