[In the following review, D'Ammassa maintains that the five stories included in the second volume of the Books of Blood are of uniformly high quality.]

Clive Barker has been widely touted as the British Stephen King, with some justification. This is the second volume of short fiction I've read [Books of Blood, Vol. II] by him, and it is certainly the highest quality original short story collection I've read in some time. The five stories are of uniformly high quality. My favorite is probably “Jaqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament”, a gory story of a woman who can physically alter the bodies of others. “New Murders in the Rue Morgue” is a fine pastiche, “Dread” is a story of a just revenge on a callous experimenter, “Hell's Event” tells of a marathon whose outcome could alter the world, and “The Skins of Our Fathers” is a haunting story of a boy sired by demons. Barker is certain to become one of the major voices of modern horror fiction if he can maintain this level of quality.