The Spaces Between the Lines
British author Crowther (The Longest Single  Note) shows impressive versatility in this collection of 12 weird  tales that evoke a variety of moods ranging from wonder to horror. "Sitting  Pretty" (with Simon Conway) is an uplifting fantasy in which a chair fashioned  from the cross of Christ shapes personal and historical destinies over the  centuries. In "Three Plays a Quarter," an exercise inTwilight Zone–style chiaroscuro, a magic jukebox in  a smalltown tavern replays dramatic moments from the lives of its patrons. In  the book's best stories, horrors arise from the efforts of grief-stricken  spouses to arrest the natural order and reverse the death of a loved one,  notably "Stand By," in which a man labors to reclaim his wife from the waiting  room of the afterlife and brings something unexpectedly nasty back with her.  Though sometimes weakened by overexplanation of their supernatural elements,  these stories are grounded in believably wrought emotions that make their  strangeness both credible and affecting.(Mar.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.