WHEN FOOTSTEPS ECHO: Tales of Terror and the Unknown

Copper, an indefatigable talesmith in the Lovecraftian vein, cultivates a plush neo-Edwardian diction that would, if sustained with just a tiny bit more precision, make these ten chillers really distinguished representatives of the genre. There's an entertainingly unlikely Jack the Ripper number, a vampire variation of fetching predictability, and--most satisfying--a neat little hypothesis about a rare print of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. The collection as a whole--like Copper's sf The Great White Space (1975)--hovers disconcertingly between mediocrity and elegance.