Extracts

Discarded medical equipment litters the floor: surgical tools blistered with rust, broken bottles, jars, the scratched spine of an old invalid chair.

I stood in the darkness of my living room, my knuckles white, my fingers tense around the sticky rubber handle of my Little League baseball bat, staring out the window into the night, trying desperately to protect my wife

It was a wild and lightning-struck night.

‘The full moon rose over us,’ Layla sang, while she carefully joined two pieces of metal together in the broiling, cramped welding bay.

How could one say with any certainty what one hated most in the world?

Umiko Wada wasn’t a private detective. She just worked for one.

Wilhelm Brasse switched on the enlarger and a bright beam of white light fell on to the sheet of photographic paper.

‘More fizz, anyone? Dad – how about you? You’re not even driving, so no excuses.’

She’d created a little altar on the chest of drawers in her bedroom

The droning of aircraft propellers echoed across the stark winter landscape.

Tokyo Station is packed. It’s been a while since Yuichi Kimura was here last, so he isn’t sure if it’s always this crowded.

Forty-five, married and healthy, Liv Winsome was increasingly dismayed by her lot.

Carra Finlay stood under the clothesline and watched in dismay as all her dreams blew away in the wind.

Adolf Hitler hasn’t seen daylight for a month now.

When people say ‘terminal’, I think of the airport.

I felt cold. Cold in the way of night sweats

After a bumpy flight, fifteen men dropped from the Montana sky.

It wasn’t me!