This is an old review of mine from Hellnotes back in January 2014.
The Smell of Evil
by Charles Birkin
Published by Valancourt Books
ISBN: 976-1-939140-74-6
December 2013, $16.99 PB
Reviewed by David A. Riley
Dennis Wheatley is quoted on the back cover as stating “More than a
definite touch of the great master, Edgar Allan Poe.” Well intentioned
though that comparison may have been, it is totally misleading. Birkin’s
style is as far from Poe’s as it could possibly be. You’ll rarely find
anything approaching the Gothic horrors of Poe within the dark tales of
human evil in Birkin’s stories. Invariably set within the contemporary
world, the characters in these thirteen tales are firmly based on
reality. Whether they be self-deceived German gardeners working within
the shadow of Second World War concentration camps or young tearaways
escaping from a race riot in 1960s London, the horrors within these
stories are of man’s (or woman’s) own making.
With an elegant writing style, Birkin shows his complete mastery of the conte cruel,
leading the reader on to some of the most sadistic climaxes in
literature. He rarely uses the supernatural, though when he does, as in
“Little Boy Blue”, he is as proficient in this as in his more usual kind
of story.
Born in 1907, Charles Birkin (later Sir Charles Birkin) had a long literary career, editing the Creeps series for Philip Allan in the 1930s, as well as an inaugural collection of his own stories, Devil’s Spawn
(1936), before laying his writing to one side during the Second World
War when he served in the Sherwood Foresters. Many of his most infamous
stories stem from his experiences during and just after the end of the
war when he witnessed first hand what men were really capable of doing.
It was not till the 1960s, though, that he began writing again with the
encouragement of his friend, Wheatley. The Smell of Evil was the first of seven collections published during that decade, culminating in Spawn of Satan in 1970. After living in Cyprus for several years he died on the Isle of Man in 1985.
Long out of print, other than several hard cover, now collectible
volumes from Midnight House, it is wonderful to see Valancourt Books at
last bringing an easily affordable collection to a new reading public.
It would be even more wonderful if over the next few years if the rest
of Birkin’s collections are brought back into print.
This volume is rounded out with an insightful introduction by John Llewellyn Probert.
