The Hard Drug Chronicles

Don't be misled by the product information, this book is a collection of short stories by an extensive list of contributors. As well as being one of the contributors Jerry Stahl is one of five editors.

The book is an extensive volume of drug stories but I wouldn't say comprehensive simply because there doesn't seem to be the level of international contributors from the rather small number of stories I read. There is a reason for this in the history of how the book came to be published so don't take it as a criticism.

The first story is from Welsh writer Harold Marks who has certainly been around and his contribution here is set in Spain.

At 735 pages it is a substantial volume and fairly evenly covering cocaine, speed and heroin in that order. Readers titillated by the offbeat, the deviant, the criminal and sleazy will be sated for ages. Readers interested in drugs could have a lifetime's supply of short stories to read depending on how old they are and how compulsive are their habits.