
Cold Hand in Mine was first published in the UK in 1975 & in the US in 1977 The story ' Pages from a Young Girl's Journal' won the Aickman World Fantasy Award in 1975 It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections & contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat & a woman who sees an image of her own soul There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (' Pages from a Young Girl's Journal') but all the stories remain unconventional & inconclusive which perhaps makes them all the more startling & intriguing' Of all the authors of uncanny tales Aickman is the best ever His tales literally haunt me; his plots & his turns of phrase run through my head at the most unlikely moments' Russell Kirk