selling author of Ghost Story--and 8-time Bram Stoker Award winner--gathers 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfully imaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing.

"Revelatory.... A remarkably consistent, frequently unsettling book." --The Washington Post

"[Straub] collects the best scary short stories out there." --Time

Dan Chaon "The Bees"
Elizabeth Hand "Cleopatra Brimstone"
Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem "The Man on the Ceiling"
M. John Harrison "The Great God Plan"
Ramsey Campbell "The Voice of the Beach"
Brian Evenson "Body"
Kelly Link "Louise's Ghost"
Jonathan Carroll "The Sadness of Detail"
M. Rickert "Leda"
Thomas Tessier "In Praise of Folly"
David J. Schow "Plot Twist"
Glen Hirshberg "The Two Sams"
Thomas Ligotti "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story"
Benjamin Percy "Unearthed"
Bradford Morrow "Gardener of Heart"
Peter Straub "Little Red's Tango"
Stephen King "The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet"
Joe Hill "20th Century Ghost"
Ellen Klages "The Green Glass Sea"
Tia V. Travis "The Kiss"
Graham Joyce "Black Dust"
John Crowley "Missolonghi 1824"
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson "Insect Dreams"