The two most well-known du Maurier pieces of short fiction--"The Birds" and "Don't Look Now"--are reprinted here, along with seven other tales of oddness, secrets, and unexplained happenings. The search for solitude, for certainty, emerges again and again through these stories as isolated waterfronts ("Not After Midnight," "The Old Man," "The Pool") become the sites of strange doings that jar the du Maurier heroes and heroines out of their quietude and plunge them into fearfulness and fixations. Similarly, the flights of "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now" (visually heightened in their distinguished film versions), seem to end with nowhereto-run, since the birds pursue as relentlessly as the psychics of Venice. The other titles included here are "The Apple Tree," "The Blue Lenses," "The Chamois," and "Kiss Me Again, Stranger." They have appeared in collections dating back to 1952.
