From Comrade Shakespeare McNab who enlists the help of La Diablesse to retrieve his faltering career at a Caribbean broadcasting station, to the 14-year-old English girl who develops a terror of infinity; from the electifying description of a woman attacked as she lies sleeping, to the lyrical exploration of myths of El Dorado, Pauline Melville lures the reader into intriguingly different worlds. The sheer malevolence of everyday life is offset with hilarity, making these stories both unsettling and funny.