Author Darryl Shelton sent me a complimentary copy of his latest book, Tales Well Calculated to Keep You in SUSPENSE, published in 2007. Mr. Shelton continued to hound me about doing a book review and I was being polite by telling him I would get to it when I had the time. But his insistence has become peer pressure. So, Mr. Shelton, here's your review. The cover is fantastic. I love the art work. I wish I could say the same about the interior of your book.
Honestly, a young man named Martin Grams was in high school in 1998 when he wrote a 500 page book on the same subject, spent his life savings self-publishing his massive thesis, and did a hell of a better job than you. Worse, there is absolutely nothing in Mr. Shelton's book that isn't in the 1998 book. Mr. Shelton even acknowledges Mr. Grams on the first page for permission to reprint material from Suspense: Twenty Years of Thrills and Chills. But I wonder if Mr. Grams knew that 95 percent of Shelton's book was going to be a reprint from Grams? I am not saying Grams' book is perfect by any means. But when I have a question that needs answering, I find it in Grams' 500 page book. Darryl Shelton's 270 page book doesn't even have a fourth of what is contained in the former.
Honesty is brutal, but so is Mr. Shelton's book.
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