Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work. This anthology invites both emerging and established voices to reimagine the chilling atmospheres, twisted plots, and unforgettable characters of Hitchcock’s films, from Psycho and Vertigo to North by Northwest and The Birds.
Each author takes on the challenge of evoking the quintessentially ‘Hitchcockian’ elements that have captivated audiences for decades: ordinary lives interrupted by peril, psychological duels, and unexpected encounters that spiral into nightmares

Maxim Jakubowski is one of my favourite editors. I like the stories that he picks. He’s been around a long time and knows everyone, so he can call on a lot of talent. I loved the premise of getting well-known writers to produce Hitchcockian stories.

Hitchcock also had an eye for talent. He was the first editor to promote Roald Dahl’s short stories. He made Patricia Highsmith’s debut novel into a movie within a year of it being published. I grew up with his TV series, and I’ve seen many of his movies, some of them as reruns at the cinema.

The twenty-four stories in this collection vary greatly in style and content, but they each do their part to evoke the spirit of Hitchcock’s movies and TV shows. Not all of them matched my taste, but I’m sure other readers will have different favourites. 

Below, I’ve commented on each story in the order that Maxim Jakubowski presented them. I’ve rated each story, very subjectively, of course. I rated four as five stars, three as four stars, seven as three stars, two as two stars, and four as one star. There was one I didn’t rate because I abandoned it partway through. 

STRANGERS ON A SCHOOL BUS by Peter Swanson ★★★

The title told me that this was going to be a twist on Hitchcock’s 1951 movie, ‘Strangers On A Train‘, adapted from Patricia Highsmuth’s debut novel, ‘Strangers On A Train‘ (1950), but I didn’t see the twist coming. It was a clever idea that slowly unfurled as Detective Marchard interviewed teenager Jane Weir about her conversation on a School Bus with Lisa Kelly. The school trip and the teenage bullying were neatly rendered. The reveal was suprising but a little abrupt. Even so, the ending was satisfying.

THE HUNTER by Vaseem Khan ★★★★

I thought I knew where this one was going, right up to the point where it went somewhere else entirely. The ending was shocking and very very good. My whole understanding of the story shifted. It was wonderfully well done.

DANIELLE’S THE DEAD ONE by Sophie Hannah ★

This one didn’t work for me. I could see it was meant to be amusing, but I found it tedious. It was a joke that took so long to get to the punchline that I no longer cared. The only part that made me smile was the discussion about whether a director can have more than one masterpiece.

SPLIT YOUR SILVER TONGUE by S A Cosby ★★★★★

Short, intense, surprising, horrifying and memorable. The siutation went from ambiguous to potentially erotic to truly and unexpectedly horrific as smoothly as changing up through the gears on a powerful car.

PSYCHO GEOGRAPHY by Guy Adams ★

There are stories where the words “clever”, “artful” and “concept-rich” are not praise. This is one of them. More of a lecture than a story. So laden with semiotics that it collapsed in on itself. 

IT’S RAINING VIOLETS by Ana Teresa Pereira ★★★★

This story felt like a dream. Strong emotions. Vivid flashes of detail against a blurred background. A sense of threat or dread from a lack of agency. I didn’t understand everything in the story but that was OK. I don’t think I was meant to. The man in story, a short story writer, doesn’t really live in the present. He lives in his imagination and the shadow cast by his past. He refuses to admit his motives or openly acknowledge his desires. He lives in pursuit of a ghost. I liked that the girl he fixed on saw through him.

LIKE A BUN AT BEWLEY’S by David Thomson ★

I must be missing something. This story made no sene to me. It was like listening to a guy in the pub who thinks he’s a raconteur but who keeps losing the thread, adding more swagger than story. I couldn’t figure out which Hitchcock movie or TV episode it was inspired by or what the ending meant.

THE BIRDS ON A TRAIN by Lee Child ★★

I liked the set-up of the story: the train journey, the arrival at Hastings, the establishment of the kind of man our assassin for hire was. I wanted to see where it was going to go. Then there was a sudden, unexpected event, and everything was thrown off course, giving a rapid and unexpected ending. The ending was amusing in the context of an Hitchcock-inspired story, but it felt too rushed for me.

THE KARPMAN DRAMA TRIANGLE by Denise Mina ★★★★★

This was excellent. In a single, short video call, Denise Mina told the story of a dysfunctional family AND delivered a tense drama. She even cleverly used the roles in the Karpman Drama Triangle to do it. I’m impressed.

THE MOUNTAIN EAGLE by Xan Brooks ★★★

This tale held me all the way through. It had the feel of a story written in the early 20th Century, when it was set, but with a 21st Century sensibility with regard to how the powerful treat outsiders. Perhaps that’s why the 20th Century ending I was expecting didn’t happen. Perhaps that was the point.

HICTCHCOCK BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN by Lily Samson★★★★★

A bizarre idea, beautifully executed. It kept me engaged and it kept me guessing. I got some fascinating background on Hitchcock and a story the became more disturbing as it went along.

COAT CHECK by Keith Lansdale & Joe R. Lansdale ★★★★

A mistake by a coatcheck girl at a restaurant is all it takes for the lives of these violent, always-looking-for-an-edge men to unravel. I liked the chaos of it and the feeling of self-imposed doom. Not to mention the open grave in the dark of the night and a small clever twist at the end, like a knife turning in flesh.

KILLING HITCH by Peter Lovesey

I abandoned this one. I can see that the script format is appropriate to something Hitchcock-inspired but it’s not engaging which me the, I-know-you-don’t-know-what’s-going-on-here-but-trust-me pitch harder to land.

THE MARK by Anne Billson ★★★★★

Great first line: “On the whole, he preferred not to have to kill them, but sometimes it was necessary.” Dark, clever, orignal and surprising, it was everything Hitchcock was at his best. The surface glittered but everything beneath was corrupt. I spotted the references to “Frenzy” and “Dial M For Murder” but I’m sure there were others that I missed. I loved the calm, quiet cruelty of the ending.

HITCHCOCK PRESENTS by Kim Newman ★★★

This was fun. I loved the dual meaning of the title, the way the main character’s job as a lecturer in film provided me with an education in Hitchcock movies while also ratcheting up the tension with each parcel that arrived. It was told with a light touch and at just the right pace.

THE NEST by Jeff Noon ★★★

This was original and creepy but a little too long and, for me, too far-fetched to be engaging.

THE MIGRATORY PATTERN OF BIRDS by M W Craven ★★★

This had the feeling of a Washington Poe Christmas special with a nod to ‘Frenzy‘. I haven’t read the Washington Poe books (I’ve been put off by people being burned alive in the first one) but that didn’t stop m enjoying this story. It was light, fast, ingenious and amusing.

CAMEO by Donna Moore ★★★

Nicely crafted for this anthology, this story is about a filandering film director with a strong preference for his blonde leading ladies, who is carefull NOT called Hitchcock. I liked the tough-cookie character of the vengeful wife, mixed with humorous Hitchcock-related crossword clues, a demonstration of the difference between thriller and suspense and clever ending that I didn’t see coming.

EMPIRE BUILDER by James Grady ★

An experiment with form?

With comedic intent?

That went on…

…far too long.

PRIVATE BROWSER by A K Benedict ★★★★

If there was a 2025 version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, this story would be perfect for it. The plot was clever. The ending was a surprise. The people felt real. I liked that it was a very up-to-the-minute take on murder and finding a killer.

RUSSIAN HILL by Jerome Charyn ★★

A hard-boiled tale with a complex plot with a couple of clever twists. A strong sense of place (San Francisco in a time when men stll wore Fedora’s) but the I’m-too-cool-to show-any-emotion movie voice-over style of storytelling meant I didn’t connect with any of the people in the story.

CHEST by Ragnar Jónasson ★★★

Short but suprisingly tense. An homage to Hitchcock where the suspense came in part from knowing Hitchcock’s films.

THE FALCON HOTEL by Nadine Matheson ★★★

I’ve spent a lot of time in airport hotels. This story captures the sense of dislocation that I often experienced in them; of being in a bubble that sealed off from the world. It builds on this to create a sense of threat and finally fear that arises partly from the situation and partly from the slowly dawning realisation that the main character may have lost her grip on reality.

ARLENE by William Boyle ★★★★

I admire the way this started so firmly grounded in an almost mundane reality and then slowly slid first into grief and pain, then into transgression and finally into something almost supernaturally strange. The control of pace and tone was excellent.