“Monuments in Darkness is filled with masterful characterization and a slow, nerve-wracking pace, where each story reveals a labyrinth of unspeakable truths. Kaufmann excels at drawing out the mystery in his fiction, building tension through the absence of information. That void in the center of each tale will dare you to enter and face the terrifying visions within. And to your horror you'll go, and go eagerly.”
—Simon Strantzas, author of Nothing Is Everything and Only the Living Are Lost
“Horrors literary, classic, and cosmic populate Monuments in Darkness--this collection has claws and isn't afraid to use them. Even in the blind depths of utter darkness, Nicholas Kaufmann knows his way around a horror tale.”
—Matthew M. Bartlett, author of Gateways to Abomination and The Obsecration
This volume commemorates Nicholas Kaufmann’s twenty-five years as a writer of weird fiction, which began with the story “La Bête Est Morte” (2000). In this diverse volume of his recent tales we find narratives such as “The Fire and the Stag” and “The Fifth Horseman,” which suggest that the universe is under the control of a malevolent deity. “The Rest Is Noise” hints at the weird power of music, while “Lucienne” fuses crime and the supernatural in its tribute to Edgar Allan Poe. “Every Path Taken” draws upon H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness” in broaching the possibility of brains kept alive outside the body.
In “Whatever Happened to Solstice Young” we are introduced to a fetching young woman possibly endowed with supernatural powers; “Companion” tells of a man haunted by the ghost of his own father. And in a concluding novella of great power and richness, “General Slocum’s Gold” again melds hard-boiled crime with a grisly horror from the past. Throughout, Kaufmann’s supple prose and sensitivity to the nuances of character are shiningly evident.
Nicholas Kaufmann is the author the novel In the Shadow of the Axe (2016) and the story collections Walk in Shadows (2003) and Still Life (2018). He has also written a series of supernatural novels about Dr. Laura Powell (The Hungry Earth, The Stone Serpent, and The Mind Worms [2021–24]).
