THE CALL AND OTHER STORIES

By a fine, dependable British author whose fiction ranges from sf to WW II-set novels (The Kingdom by the Sea, 1991): six stories partaking of the supernatural. A truant is trapped in a house where the ghostly occupant tests his honesty while offering a deadly bargain; the outrage of an architectural historian provokes the mysterious resurgence of stately ``Denswick Park,'' now converted to new homes. ``Warren, Sharon and Darren'' features a virgin birth of an extraterrestrial, who intriguingly does and doesn't resemble Jesus (he's so embarrassingly precocious that his parents are forced to change his school). ``The Badger'' rises from the dead to persecute the cruel hunter who killed him. Most interesting: the title story, in which the ghost of a murdered woman seeks companionship by telephone; and the intricately plotted ``The Red House Clock,'' which wreaks vengeance on a truly despicable villain—but through the ironic intervention of the narrator's singularly dour father. Solidly spooky fare—well written and imaginative. (Short stories. 12+)