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Tales of the Unexpected is a
collection of sixteen superb short stories, all of them very different,
but sharing one thing in common - the unexpected ending.
The stories are:
Taste
When Mike Schofield has
gourmet and wine connoisseur Richard Pratt over to dinner, he likes to
play a little game with his guest - a guessing game - with a small
wager on the side. Mike serves the gourmet with claret (which must be
from one of the great years) and he must name the breed and vintage of
the wine just by taste and smell alone. The bet? A case of the wine and
Mike has never won. This time he feels sure that things will be
different, but his guest wants to raise the stakes and wants his host
to bet the hand of his daughter in marriage.
Lamb to the Slaughter
The tale of a devoted
wife with a dead husband, a leg of lamb in the oven, and a house-full
of policemen.
Man from the South
"You like to bet?" the
old man asks. "Sure I'll always bet," the younger man replies, but it
is an unusual bet: the little finger of his left hand against the old
man's Cadillac.
My Lady Love, My Dove
Arthur and Pamela are
having the Snapes over for the weekend to play bridge, but when Pamela
tells Arthur what else she has in mind for the weekend he thinks it is
the nastiest trick he has ever heard of.
Dip
in the Pool
Another tale of gambling and greed. It's amazing the lengths that some
people will go to just to win, and Mr Botibol has bet all of his money
on the ship's auction.
Galloping Foxley
A business man travels
the same route to work for thirty-six years, always taking the 8.12
train to the city. There is always the same crowd at the station. It is
unchanging and unchangeable. That is until the new boy turns up one
morning, and every morning after, causing the business man to remember
traumatic incidents from his childhood.
Skin
A man living on the streets discovers that he was priceless work of art
tattooed onto the skin of his back.
Neck
Sir Basil Turton has been
able to avoid his would be suitors easily, and has been free to
concentrate on his love of art. Then Natalia enters his life, sweeps
him off his feet, and along to the registry office.
Nunc Dimittis
Spurned by his lady love,
a man concocts an unusual revenge. He pays for her portrait to be
painted.
The Landlady
The room is very cheap
and Billy Weaver is more than happy with it, even if his new landlady
does seem a little eccentric. But no one ever really knows what goes on
behind closed doors, does one?
William and Mary
William and Mary's
relationship has certainly changed somewhat since poor William died.
The
Way Up To Heaven
Mrs Foster has terrible fear of being late. Even the thought of it
makes her so nervous that her left eye starts to twitch. Mr Foster
might almost seem to be deliberately making her late.
Parson's Pleasure
Mr Boggis is a rather
unscrupulous antiques dealer, and on a weekend he dresses up as parson
to gain entry to people's homes and search for a bargain. Then one day
he finds something very rare indeed.
Mrs Bixby and the
Colonel's Coat
When her lover, the
Colonel, gives Mrs Bixby an extremely extravagant gift she has to go to
unusual lengths to stop her husband from getting suspicious.
Royal
Jelly
At six weeks old Albert Taylor's baby weighs two pounds less than when
she was born. Then beekeeper, Albert, starts mixing royal jelly into
her milk.
Edward the Conqueror
When a stray cat turns up
at their home Louisa quickly come to believe that it is the
reincarnation of the composer Franz Liszt. Edward though, is more
sceptical.
I read the paperback version of Tales
of the Unexpected. It ran to
282 pages and I found it a very handy to delve into when I had little
free time in between doing other things. It would be hard for me to
pick a favourite from the stories above, but, if pressed, I would
probably have to go with either The
Landlady or Man
from the South. I particularly
liked the characters in Man
from the South and how they
interacted with each other. The
Landlady is nicely unsettling
and will always come to mind whenever I have to rent a room for the
night.
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