The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable, man-made environment. Apartment: Pieter Slokker awoke from a dream in which he was trapped in a dark, windowless room. It was three o'clock in the morning, and it sounded as if someone were hammering at the door of his flat.