FICTION · LARGE TYPE
Dinah McCall
Also known as: Dinah Mccall
We have traditionally wished to believe that what separates mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom is our rationality, our ability to reason and evaluate based on conscious consideration of alternatives.
— from Bloodlines, 2005
Most acclaimed
Storm warning
In August 1939, the Honorable Duncan Morant, only son and heir of the second Lord Eversham, is enjoying life as a man-about-town, and skippering his racing schooner Kristin. But he is also a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and as the war clouds gather he is called up. Because of his experience in small boats, and his knowledge of navigating the waters of the English Channel, Morant is given command of one of the new, small, fast motor-torpedo-boats. This is a disappointment, both because he had hoped for a place on a battleship, and because no one in the Navy seems to know exactly what these boats are to be used for; the English Channel is very much a British preserve. However, as the War takes a disastrous turn in 1940 it becomes a battleground and Duncan and his crew, in their plywood hull, find themselves in the thick of several hazardous operations....
Bloodlines
2005
Witness terrifying proof that the ancestral "gene pool" is horribly contaminated... Are traits of lunacy and madness actually drawn from one's family heritage or do the brief flashes of insanity all humans occasionally display only reveal themselves in random cases? Every family has its black sheep. An unfortunate few are cursed with lineage's soiled by nothing less than the DEVIL's touch... One by one they stroll to the podium to tell their story. Family members whose relatives became infamous for crimes of unspeakable savagery and unbridled insanity. They unweave their tales to an auditorium filled with young medical students tasked with writing essays on the criminally insane mind. The victim's of the gene pool step forward and regale the fascinated group with tales that witness madness in it's most primal, primitive form. Tales which include: Skeleton Cruise: A vacation cruise turns into a living nightmare for both the precipitants and the FBI agent who is tasked to investigate it's horrific outcome... Served with a Little Grey: A young man whose family heritage includes cold-blooded murder and bouts with cannibalism struggles to control the urges that drive him towards the very edge of madness... The Tower: A veteran prison guard finds that the tower duty he usually dreads as being routinely mundane is transformed into a shift of stark, unrelenting terror on a cold and foggy night... New Blood: A quiet, isolated country retirement home opens it's doors to mystery and murder upon the arrival of 'new blood' within it's tightly-knit community... Tundra: A teen-aged boy and his family are caught unprepared when a winter storm of historic proportions blankets their small southern town... Top Gun: When a college quarterback phenom begins to display traits better suited for a homicidal serial killer, his coach and mentor soon discovers a deadly 'training' regimen better suited for the deepest, darkest caverns that hell has to offer... Psychobabble: A resident psychologist treats a mysterious, troubled patient who is tortured by visions of grisly death and unspeakable horrors, and soon finds himself a little too personally involved in the case... Loner: A self-proclaimed 'hermit' soon discovers that an over-abundance of peace and tranquillity can birth its own brand of demons... Soul Searcher: A man pursued by a malevolent entity seemingly birthed each Halloween Eve soon discovers himself slowly transformed into what he fears the most... Are traits of madness really drawn from one's family heritage or do the brief flashes of insanity that all humans display only reveal themselves in random cases? Witness a strong argument to the former...as the individuals in the audience will firmly attest to by the time the final tale is told...
The Return
After visiting a graveyard, a man finds his appearance has mysteriously changed. Returning home only to be received with horror and suspicion by his family, he must reckon with the social consequences of his bizarre transformation, while searching for an explanation and solution. Walter de la Mare has a reputation for crafting ghost stories of philosophical depth and haunting ambiguity. The Return, one of only two of his long-form supernatural works, follows this trend, and sees de la Mare exploring ideas of personal identity, spirituality, and the consequences of living in blind adherence to social expectations. Functioning as a fantastical agent of mid-life crisis, Arthur Lawford’s condition uproots the foundations of his existence and casts into doubt all he had taken for granted about himself and his place in the world. There are no cheap scares or easy answers in The Return. It’s a work rich with enigmatic detail, describing a struggle to find meaning in a world where nothing is certain; a theme as relevant and recognizable now as when the novel was first published in 1910.