Assured and deliberate, these 15 sharp, crafted stories explore the painful inner world of the hurt and the vulnerable. Several chronicle the quiet revenges perpetrated by the invisible - who, while suffering in silence, are not totally passive. Morrissy is a calm, intelligent writer whose elegant prose is brilliantly served by understatement. The guilty remain oblivious of their crimes, while the innocent are haunted by blamelessness. A young babysitter finds her kindness to a couple about to have their second child cruelly ridiculed; revenge is exacted in an act of sudden violence. Making a strange pact with God, a distraught daughter trades another patient's life in exchange for her father. Uncompromising, brutally honest and funny, these are blackly exciting, human tales from an original voice.
