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Daphne du Maurier takes a dip into the deep and murky waters of the human condition. What did she find there? Certainly not treasure. Egos punctured and hopes shattered, mysteries solved but in the worst way, the soul turned into a commodity, the wrecks of dreams and desires... just another day at the beach for the chilly and not particularly empathetic Ms. du Maurier, who is all too familiar with humanity's constant ability to fool itself.

The talent on display reminded me of both Ruth Rendell and Joyce Carol Oates. All three authors share the ability to effortlessly create characters that are recognizable and rooted in our reality, while maintaining a dispassionate detachment from those characters. Cold-blooded writers, writing about mainly unsympathetic people. Perhaps not a fun experience but there was certainly much to admire. Her prose is elegant; her characters are unpleasant but interesting; her themes are darkly fascinating; her disinterest in spelling things out and thus keeping her stories ambiguous is admirable.

The most famous of the collection, its title story "Don't Look Now" - about an ill-fated holiday in Venice - was certainly disturbing and memorable. And bleak. "Not After Midnight" had a strain of weird fantasy that made it all the more haunting. And bleak. "A Border-Line Case" pulls double duty as a mystery and an anti-romance; the story was continually tense. And bleak. "The Breakthrough" could have been a mournful exploration of things spiritual and material, but du Maurier's cold eye made the story feel more like a cautionary tale both desolate and eerie. And bleak.

My favorite was actually the most broadly comic: "The Way of the Cross". This scabrous farce details the trials and tribulations of a small tour group in Jerusalem. A miniature Ship of Fools. Nearly every character gets their very personalized and often quite cruel comeuppance (except for an ingenious child, who miraculously escapes punishment - but give him time). The worst, most excruciating embarrassment was surprisingly reserved for the irritable Reverend Babcock, forced to lead this band of snobs and hypocrites and liars. Poor Reverend! I actually thought du Maurier would leave him unscathed. Possibly because I saw myself in him, haha. But du Maurier makes it clear that a Reverend should not see himself as above his flock, even if he is in charge of a flock of assholes. Anyway, I laughed a lot in this story, I laughed until I choked.