Robert Bloch's Psychos

Before his death in 1994, Bloch, author of the horror-suspense classic Psycho, lent his imprimatur to this anthology created by the Horror Writers Association (formerly, the Horror Writers of America). Like the selections in his previous anthologies, Psycho-Paths (1991) and Monsters in Our Midst (1993), these 22 stories emphasize psychological over supernatural or physical horrors. Stephen King sets the tone with ""Autopsy Room Four,"" a nail-biting nod to Poe's ""The Premature Burial,"" in which a victim of paralysis struggles to alert dissecting pathologists that he is not yet a corpse. Less ghoulish but no less gripping is Ed Gorman's ""Out There in the Darkness"" (one of the collection's two previously published stories), about neighborhood vigilantes stalked by the vengeful cat burglar they think they have murdered. Not surprisingly, some of the best contributions delve into the motives of Norman Bates types. In ""Lighting the Corpses,"" Del Stone Jr. follows the thoughts of a serial killer who torches his victims. Both Edo van Belkom's ""The Rug"" and Gary Jonas's ""So You Wanna Be a Hit Man"" paint darkly comic portraits of people for whom murder becomes an irresistible pastime, while Bloch's favorite real-life psychopath, Jack the Ripper, shows up in both Denise Burchman's ""The Lesser of Two Evils"" and Richard Parks's ""The Knacker Man."" With one foot planted in horror, the other in crime, and its diverse hands skillfully restraining potential excesses, this volume proves that the most effective horrors are often those all in the mind. (Feb.)