For a group of short stories written over a period of several years for unrelated reasons, "The Crawling Abattoir" wouldn't seem a like candidate to have a theme, but it does: the hilarity of horror. The funny side of agony. Hit me with your torture-shtick From the desperation of a lonely necrophile deeply frustrated by unrequited corpse-love; to a really rotten clown's long drawn-out discovery that success comes only after paying his dues in multiple broken bones, lacerated kidneys, lots and lots of blood and more; and to the horrible, horrible, (really horrible) misfortunes of Little Timmy, an innocent youngster badly mistreated by the world for no very good reason other than the reader's enjoyment; this collection will jam a rusty icepick all the way through your funny-bone, and you'll laugh until you cry through months of expensive, excruciating elbow rehabilitation. Enjoy

HYMN: a song in praise to God, or gods. UNDERBELLY: the underside of an animal; an inferior or concealed part of something. Staple these two ideas together in dark unnatural congress and you get something like a mime with Tourette's Syndrome, shouting random obscenities at a little girl on the street. You get men (and a heavily tattooed, bodily-modified woman named Godiva - rowrrr ) who just aren't right in the head, but who are allowed to roam the streets with razors and drivers licenses and ferrets like they're normal, church-going people, singing normal, church-going songs, right up until that moment when you realize they're really singing demented clown-chants. No, these stories are not hymns, but "The Dark Underbelly of Hymns." Enjoy Martin Mundt's second collection of horror, humor and the macabre contains a dozen must-read tales, including "The Worst Mime In The World" and "The 'Nothing Good Ever Came Out Of Being Asked By Your Girlfriend If You Were A Cannibal' Blues."