Cold Hand in Mine

Cold Hand in Mine was first published in the U.K. in 1975 and in the U.S. in 1977. The story ''Pages from a Young Girl''s Journal'' won the Aickman World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.

Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman''s best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a ''strange story'' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (''Pages from a Young Girl''s Journal'') but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.