Unfortunately for those of us who organize book clubs, there are two Daphne du Maurier collections entitled Don’t Look Now. One has a purple-ish, foggy cover and contains the short story “Don’t Look Now” plus four others. The second book is orange with a still shot from Roman Polanski’s 1965 movie Repulsion and includes “Don’t Look Now” plus eight other stories. Today, I’m discussing the orange book with stories selected by Patrick McGrath, who also wrote a forward that I didn’t read because that’s where academic-types like to spoil the stories before you’ve even read them.

In her most popular novels (Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn), du Maurier doesn’t like to give readers easy solutions. We’ve been debating for decades what Rachel’s designs truly were or whether Maxim’s claims on Rebecca are accurate given she’s no longer alive to defend herself. Similarly, readers face nine cerebral chillers in this collection, and while you may get a conclusion, that doesn’t mean you’re given a resolution. Eight of the tales are set in England. Six are longer short stories. All nine are affected by the end of WWI and the freefall into WWII.

I found the plotting highly effective for convincing readers that these characters are not in control of what is happening to them. Sometimes, it’s stated directly: “The cabin seemed very musty, very dark. I felt faint and queer, and something like a sob rose in my throat which I could not control.” Other times, characters are at odds with their environment, seeming to have slipped through time like a Twilight Zone episode. In the titular tale, husband and wife cannot agree on the trustworthiness of elderly twins, one of whom goes into a trance and tells the wife their deceased child is with them on their current trip. In “Monte Verita,” a husband loses his wife to a religious cult in the mountains, returning yearly for a glimpse of her. Did the suspect villagers take her, or is she really behind the rockface living in paradise? In “Split Second,” a fastidious mother leaves her apartment for a walk only to return to it populated by photographers who have stolen her worldly possessions and tied up her housemaid. Maybe.

Du Maurier is also a master of setting. Contemporary British novels often let me forget I’m not in America, but du Maurier never allows it. For instance, a narrator comments, “…I went down to the picture palace, and taking a look at the poster saw it was cowboy and Indian stuff—there was a picture of a cowboy sticking a knife into the Indian’s guts. I like that—proper baby I am for westerns—so I paid my one and twopence and went inside.” Granted, this is a rather violent preference for our narrator, but the British terms, like “picture palace,” “proper” and the money type, kept me in the setting.

Furthermore, you cannot forget that these stories are set between WWI and WWII. You get fatigue of misery, the PTSD written in metaphor. In “The Birds,” a father who fought in WWI and was injured, is now a farmer. When flocks of birds attack humans, people shelter in place, but the larger birds begin pecking away at wood-covered windows. The farmer’s daughter takes note:

“I can hear the birds,” she said. ” Listen, Dad.”

Nat listened. Muffled sounds came from the windows, from the door. Wings brushing the surface, sliding, scraping, seeking a way of entry. . . . “Some of them will kill themselves that way,” he thought, “but not enough. Never enough.”

You can’t help but think of the sky darkening with bomber planes, kamikaze planes crashing themselves, but always more following behind.

Du Maurier’s humor is wild when she uses it, and her mechanism changes depending on need. Sometimes, the humor is a unexpected honesty. In “Kiss Me Again, Stranger,” as a man buys an ice cream in the cinema, he asks the employee if he can buy one for her, too. She replies “no thanks” because she “saw them made.” I about died laughing at the surprise of her answer. After she leaves, he laments, “…and there I was sitting with a great sixpenny cornet in my hand looking a fool. The damn thing slopped all over the edge of the holder, spilling on to my shirt, and I had to ram the frozen stuff into my mouth as quick as I could for fear it would all go on my knees…” Who among us hasn’t struggled with frustrating drippy cone situation? Du Maurier makes good use of relatable situational humor.

Sometimes, the humor is facetious. In “The Blue Lenses,” Mrs. West gets her eyes operated on, and after the bandage is removed, everyone has a different kind of animal head with a human body. In the medical facility, one nurse looks like a kitten. Mrs. West keeps trying to point out that her vision is not normal for post-op, but it hurts the nurse’s feelings.

The kitten turned. “A joke’s a joke, Mrs. West,” she said, “and I can take a laugh with anyone. But I can’t stick rudeness.”

“Miaow,” said Marda West.

Although I felt all nine stories were successful, I found the shorter two, each about ten pages only, less memorable compared to their immersive counterparts. They read more like a “ha-HA!” than a full story, giving you a punch at the end rather than a sustained journey.