FIVE STARS! (Highest Rating) *****
by Sammy Juliano author of Mikey’s Absolution
Almost a year to the day after he released “Transgressions,” prolific short story specialist John Greco, a Floridian from Brooklyn roots, has published another collection titled “Strange Days.” The 29-story collection again explores dark and seedy themes that encompass marital infidelity, suicides, car crash fatalities, and unexpected appearances from the Grim Reaper and satisfying comeuppance, which more often than not metes out punishment to those who flagrantly violate the moral code.
While the vast majority of the stories run just a few pages in the handsomely crafted monochrome paperback edition, there are a few that probe deeply into character and theme. Right out of the playbook of the British studio Amicus, but uniquely Grecoan, “An Almost Perfect Woman” brings a grieving widower the security he was certain he would never be graced with after tragedy; the brilliantly-plotted “Call Waiting,” where a man is constantly phoned by a mistress who died from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Recalling The Twilight Zone’s “Night Call,” a spooky episode starring Gladys Cooper, Ben joins Carol in permanent slumber in a devilish story of retribution. Greco’s longest is the 22-page finale, “This Gun For Rent,” which brings Greco to his expertise – film noir. One envisions “The Maltese Falcon” in this story of Phillip Spade, a private eye working out of 42nd Street who is approached by a woman who lost her husband. Spade is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who hates the Yankees for winning too much, dislikes Joe DiMaggio for being a prude, and for being possessive of Marilyn Monroe. Spade is confident the Dodgers will prevail in 1955, a sentiment that comes to pass. The story presents a shocking array of relationships, a real page-turner!
There is always a wistful story in every Greco collection, and in “Strange Days” it is undoubtedly “The Sandwich Shop,” a Mystic, New York, eatery that is forced to close after COVID brings economic fallout. Charlie Bowman, a violinist who passed away, returns for musical bliss, enchanting those who walk past the empty lot. But my favorite of the exceedingly short stories in the collection is “Tommy,” an achingly beautiful remembrance of a man who created a false mise en scene of a brother he never had. The “only child” connotation may have autobiographical implications here, but it’s deeply felt.
One of the best stories in “Strange Days” is “The House Down the Road,” featuring a sexual predator English teacher named Richard Crawford, and the two stories Greco starts with, “No Questions Asked,” about a cheating wife who receives a violent punishment, and “Guilt” a story set over 50 years where a young killer meets his end in the same fashion and setting where he committed the dastardly act. I love many more, but I’ll just add “The Scent of Death,” a TZ “The Purple Testament”-like story about a man’s supernatural power to bring death to many people he encountered. The theme? What goes around comes around.
“Fat Tony’s Brother, (always remember that blood is thicker than water!)” “Poor George,” “Frank’s Bar,” Call Waiting,” An Almost Perfect Woman,” “Alone Time,” the cemetery-set fatalist “Gone Too Soon,” and the perversely disturbing “A Shocking Tale” where a bolt of lightning and an open fly zipper paint the unforgettable climax.
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John Greco Author/Photographer 