The Unsettled Dust / Aickman, Robert

Robert Aickman, the supreme master of the supernatural, brings together eight of his self-proclaimed "strange stories". The stories in this collection are constructed immaculately; the neuroses of his characters painted in subtle shades. He builds dread by the steady accrual of realistic detail, until the reader realizes that the protagonist is heading towards their doom as if in a dream. His characters are often lonely and middle-aged, but all have the same thing in common - they are all brought to the brink of an abyss that shows how terrifyingly fragile our piece of mind actually is.