THE GREEN FLASH

The subtitle "and other tales of horror, suspense, and fantasy" indicates the range but not the extraspecial competence of Miss Aiken's collection. . . whether it's the gently disquieting, deathdirected attrition of "Mrs. Considine" or the disconsolate "A View of the Heath" in which a little old lady rents an attic room as a repository for the romantic loss and sheer clutter of her lifetime. But then there's the chilly heartlessness of a husband in his wife's last "Summer by the Sea"; the John Collieresque "Smell" about a seemingly handicapped little old lady; the still stronger shaft of the title story — a proper horror it is too. These are the best — there's an occasional sketchier one -but all in all it's wide open-eyed, open-ended entertainment for everyone who wants to spend an evening on the edge of that Hitchcock chair.