REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:         


ROBERT BLOCH – Terror. Belmont L92-537, paperback original, May 1962.

ROBERT BLOCH Terror

   Bloch’s mysteries aren’t really much as mysteries go, I guess: his idea of plot development is to have weird characters keep dropping in on the hero and move him from place to place, scattering clues and filling in the background.

   And these characters are nothing remarkable, either: tough cops, mysterious beauties, and verbose experts in arcane lore show up pretty much on cue and go through their paces. But there’s something so seamlessly easy-going about Bloch’s plotting and prose I find myself swallowing it whole.

   Terror spins the tale of a nice young man thrust into a Maltese-Falcon-like hunt for a stolen artifact that devolves into a series of ritual murders committed by some death-worshiping fanatic who… well, you get the idea.

   As I say, the plot consists of nothing more than our hero being picked up by various supporting players and hustled about from chapter to chapter till we reach the end. And as I say, it’s fast and fun the whole way, a style of writing that seems to have just about disappeared.