In the Flesh

The 15 stories of horror and dark suspense in Patridge's second collection (after Slippin' into Darkness, which won a 1993 Bram Stoker Award) abound with characters with peculiar wants and needs. In ""Dead Celebs"" and the title story, collectors of celebrity memorabilia indulge ghoulish passions that verge on necrophilia. In ""Dead Man's Hand,"" a legendary gunslinger's quest to retrieve his severed shooting hand sends him on rampage of blood and black magic in the badlands of the Wild West. Partridge silhouettes the spiritual emptiness of his characters against eerie Southwestern backdrops cluttered with pop-culture artifacts from bygone days and haunted by the plaintive songs of Buddy Holly and Elvis. His fondness for the 1950s and its aura of lost innocence fuels three stories that deploy garish elements from B-movies to highlight the dark side of small-town life. Notwithstanding their echoes of noir fiction, these stories--two original, the rest reprints--showcase the author's ability to be inventively retro without seeming derivative. (June)