For What It's Worth is a very diverse collection of short stories. It's the literal equivalent of a TV show like Tales of the Unexpected, The Hunger or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. No two stories are alike. Some are downright creepy, others are extremely funny or carefully plotted mysteries. I particularly liked the fact that the author tries out several different writing styles, each relevant to the story in question. He drifts between first person and third person narratives with ease. Some of the stories are heavy on dialogue while others are dialogue free, but if they have one thing in common it's that most of them are well paced and the plots unravel nicely. With the stories all being short it's impossible to get bored too. Be warned though, quite a few of them have a sting in the tail!
My favourite was The Letters, which is a quite disturbing story of a man in a rather scary predicament with a postman (of sorts). It was gritty and had me wincing as I read it. Other highlights include The Graveyard Shifters which was a very unique story and also very funny. And the 75th Last Meal was a fascinating "what's going to happen here?" tale about a man on death row. I liked the fact too that a few of the stories openly pay their respects to the likes of Poe, Dickens, Dostoevsky and Dorothy Parker.
Some of them are very short but fun, like Pus and The Lighter. While for the thinking reader there are slightly longer tales with clever ideas such as The Nature of a Second Hand and Ten Days in the Extra Life.
If you want a book that you can pick up once a day and read a short story that's usually fun or thought provoking then you can't go too far wrong with this. There's something for all tastes. Some you might love, some you might not, but they're all interesting. And as an added bonus, the author has added some notes at the back of the book to explain what he was thinking when he wrote each piece. This was a pleasant and interesting discovery when I reached it.
Well worth a read.
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