検索キーワード： 著者 "Sally Cook" ミステリー・スリラー・サスペンス

Shattered is one of four short stories in this compilation. Between them, they explore paranormal and ghostly activities, a paddlesteamer wreck and its implications, near drowning and a mystery stranger. The stories explore relationships and reactions between the characters and are infused with atmospheric sound effects.

The Swaggie on the Hill tells the story of a young girl who is puzzled by the adult life around her. This comes to a head when she and her classmates at a small primary school are shut in the school house by their teachers while a threatening man looms in the school grounds, causing simultaneous nose bleeds in two of the boys. And there is the matter of the witch-like woman who lives nearby. She frightens the children as they rush past her place in their billycarts. The story is set in mid 1960s Melbourne and is enhanced with sound effects.

This story tells of a twenty-year-old girl who is house-sitting for six months in a seemingly calm and pleasant neighborhood where nothing peculiar seems to happen. That is, until Mandy hears screaming in the night, hears wailing and moaning during a heavy thunderstorm, feels an earth tremor beneath her feet and feels a man breathing over her in the night. And she has no one to confide in. She may be hypersensitive but does she catastrophize events or are they really happening and not very far below the surface?

Rhythm of Fire tells the story of 11-year-old twin boys who inadvertently kill an old woman. She dies of smoke inhalation in her rural shop crammed with Christmas decorations, A complex story unfolds leading to her identity and some unexpected developments following her tragic death.