These dolls have been around since 1886. According to the novel, a ship called the Dunarling was carrying 85 passengers wanting to migrate from Scotland to South Australia, but also four dolls, each named and cursed: ''Swith'' was cursed with fire (bleeze), ''Agley'' with mischance, ''Smeddum'' with foulness, and ''Snell'' with the final destruction (otherwise referred to as All fa'' doon!). These mandrake dolls were set upon the Dunarling by Marie Catherine de Lairgo because she is jealous and wants to get revenge, which she bids the mandrake dolls to do: she was the former ''wife'' of one of the passengers, Adam Colquhoun. 100 years after the shipwreck of the Dunarling, two youngsters, Adam Hardy and Catriona Chisholm, discovered the dolls. Along with them were the school bullies, Richard Vernon and Mike Carter, but they did not seem to care much about the finding of Jamie Ramsay''s cave, where the dolls were secretly hidden. Richard Vernon and Mike Carter then took two of the dolls. Adam and Catriona form a bond with each other as time unfolds and Adam starts having visions of the past and realised that Catriona looks just like Margaret Colquhoun, the fiancée of Adam Colquhoun. Adam tracks down two of these dolls that were held by Mike Carter and Richard Vernon. These dolls made Mike and Richard insane, saying that they had failed their masters in destroying the town. The dolls possess Mike and Richard into setting fire to the hardware store, crashing a bus and also poisoning a water system with white ant killer. Tam Dubh, the fifth mandrake doll, warns Adam what is going to happen, so he manages to stop the last two events from completely unfolding. Adam then destroys all of the dolls by throwing them over a cliff into the ocean.

Mandragora

Set exclusively in the British Indian Empire (mainly India, but also Burma) in the final years of the 19th century, the story is told by Gerald Ethridge, a young, high-ranking member of the Indian Civil Service. Anna Lombard, the 21-year-old daughter of a general, has just arrived from England to join her father when she is introduced to Ethridge at a ball. Attracted to each other from the very first moment, they are not given a chance to actually express their feelings when Ethridge is suddenly transferred from India to Burma. On his return a year later he is shocked to learn that Anna is having a secret affair with one of her Pathan servants&mdash;although she asserts that they got officially married in some secret Muslim ceremony. Ethridge, however, does not desert her when she declares her inability to leave her lover. Rather, while abstaining from any sexual relations himself, he tries to help Anna overcome her passion, and even nurses the servant in his own house when he becomes one of the many victims of a cholera epidemic. Anna''s lover does not survive the illness, but before she and Ethridge can get married Anna finds out that she is pregnant. Again, this does not deter Ethridge from loving her. They get married nevertheless but Ethridge insists on not consummating the marriage until after the birth of her child. When her son is born, Anna''s maternal instinct overwhelms her and she is no longer willing to give her son away, as the couple planned during her pregnancy. However, seeing her beloved husband''s suffering prolonged ad infinitum, she suffocates her baby, to emerge, after a year of repentance and making her peace with God, as the perfect partner in marriage for Ethridge.

Anna Lombard

The novel starts with a "man on the street" news interview in August 1972, in which an unnamed man (later revealed to be Dawes) gives his angry opinion of the highway extension project. The narrative then jumps forward to November 1973, with Dawes, seemingly unaware of the underlying motivations of his actions, visiting a gun shop and purchasing a heavy-caliber pistol and rifle. As the story progresses, it is revealed that Dawes'' son Charlie had died from brain cancer several years earlier, and that Dawes is unable or unwilling to sever his emotional ties to his workplace and the house that his son grew up in. Dawes loses his middle management job at an industrial laundry after sabotaging the purchase of their new facility, and after learning of his actions, his wife Mary leaves him. Dawes then approaches Sal Magliore, the owner of a local used-car dealership with ties to the Mob, in an attempt to obtain explosives. Magliore initially dismisses him as a crackpot, so Dawes assembles a load of Molotov cocktails and uses them to damage the highway construction equipment, causing a brief delay in the project. Later, Magliore agrees to sell Dawes a load of explosives, paid for with money from the sale of Dawes'' house to the city under its eminent domain statute, and has Dawes'' house checked for phone taps planted by the city. Dawes gives most of the rest of his money to Magliore to invest on behalf of Olivia Brenner, a young hitchhiker on whom he took pity during a brief meeting and sexual encounter. In January 1974, during the final hours before the morning when he must leave the property, Dawes wires the whole house with the explosives and barricades himself inside. When the police arrive to forcibly evict him, he shoots at them, forcing them to take cover and attracting the attention of the media. Dawes coerces the police into letting a reporter - the same one who interviewed him in 1972, though neither recognizes the other - come in and speak to him. Once the reporter has left, Dawes tosses his guns out the window and sets off his explosives, destroying the house with himself inside. A short epilogue reveals that there was no real reason for the extension project; the city simply had extra money in its road construction budget, and had to spend it for fear of having the next year''s budget reduced.

Roadwork

Wimsey accepts an offer from the highly respectable management of Pym''s Publicity, Ltd. (a light disguise for S. H. Bensons, where Sayers worked) to investigate a mystery and avert a scandal. Copywriter Victor Dean has died in a fall down the spiral iron office staircase, but he left a half-finished letter to the management hinting that something potentially scandalous is going on at Pym''s. Under the pseudonym of "Death Bredon" (actually his middle names), Wimsey goes to work at Pym''s. He takes over Dean''s office and learns his trade while investigating the office staff. He discovers a talent for copywriting and promotion, and produces a campaign which will become one of the firm''s most successful. He also investigates Dean''s social life. Dean, for a short time, socialized with "the DeMomerie crowd": the cronies of dissolute socialite Dian de Momerie, most of them heavy cocaine users. He met De Momerie''s companion, Major Milligan, who appears to be the cocaine supplier for the group. Milligan is linked to a big cocaine-selling ring which Wimsey''s friend and brother-in-law Chief Inspector Parker is investigating. Milligan, hearing that Dean worked at Pym''s, spoke to him assuming that Dean was the ring''s man at Pym''s. Dean was surprised, and Milligan shut up - but Dean guessed that someone else at Pym''s was involved. Hence the letter to management. Wimsey plays multiple roles. By day he is Bredon, a distant, impoverished Wimsey cousin who works for a living. Most evenings, he is himself. But on some evenings, "Bredon" dresses up as a masked harlequin, and by various wild stunts draws the attention and company of Dian de Momerie - annoying Major Milligan. Junior newspaper reporter Hector Puncheon has a beer in a pub, and discovers later that someone put a bag of cocaine in his coat pocket. He must have blundered into a distribution operation, but there''s no further sign of anything at that pub. Apparently the ring holds each week''s distribution at a different location. Wimsey continues his probing at Pym''s, and learns that one of the senior copywriters, Tallboy, seems to have large amounts of cash. Puncheon recognizes a man who was in the pub the night he was given the cocaine, and follows him. Puncheon gets knocked out, and the man "accidentally" falls in front of a moving train. The dead man (Mountjoy) had money but no job or assets, which fits a drug dealer. His effects include a telephone book with the names of many pubs ticked off. One of the marked pubs is the one where Puncheon was given the cocaine. Other clues turn up: a scarab in Dean''s desk, a large pebble in the stairwell, a "catapult" (slingshot) belonging to office boy Ginger Joe, who is recruited by "Bredon" to help in the investigation. Finally Wimsey makes the connection. One of Pym''s major clients runs a large newspaper advertisement every Friday morning. The text is approved a few days earlier. The first letter of the advertisement''s text indicates the pub to be used that week. Tallboy supplies the letter to the ring as soon as the text is approved. A final clue turns up during a company social outing, in the course of a cricket match between Pym''s and Brotherhood''s, a soft-drink company and Pym''s client. Most of the players are middle-aged and flabby. But Wimsey, provoked by a ball which clips his elbow, shows off the form which made him a first-team star at Eton and Oxford. Tallboy too shows a surprising talent, when he knocks down a wicket with a perfect throw from deep in the field. Wimsey wins the match for Pym''s, which is about to expose his cover when the police, led by Parker, arrest "Bredon" for the murder of Dian de Momerie. Milligan is dead too - killed in yet another "accident" as the ring covers its tracks. But the ring is still operating, and the police want to nab the whole gang at their next distribution. With Mountjoy''s phone book, all they need is the letter for the week - which is provided by Ginger Joe. While "Bredon" supposedly sits in jail, "Lord Peter" is much seen about town for the next few days. The roundup comes off as planned, but the death of Victor Dean remains unsolved. That night, Tallboy comes to Wimsey''s flat and confesses. He was sucked into the scheme with a innocent-sounding story and the offer of money he needed. But soon he was trapped. Then Dean found out and blackmailed him. Tallboy shot him in the head with Ginger Joe''s catapult on the staircase, so it would look like an accident. Tallboy he cannot escape, and suggests suicide, which would save his family from the shame of his trial and conviction for murder. Wimsey, after looking out of the window, has an alternative: Tallboy must go home, on foot, and never look behind him. Both know that the gang''s killers are waiting in ambush.

Murder Must Advertise

George, the nephew of plantation owner Mrs. Peyton, returns from a trip to France to find that his aunt''s plantation is in dire financial straits as a result of his late uncle''s beneficence. Jacob McClosky, the man who ruined the late Judge Peyton, has come to inform them that their plantation will be sold and their slaves auctioned off separately. Salem Scudder, a kind yankee, was Judge Peyton''s business partner; though he wishes he could save Terrebonne, he has no money. George is courted by the rich Southern belle heiress Dora Sunnyside, but he finds himself falling in love with Zoe, the daughter of his uncle through one of the slaves. Dora, oblivious to George''s lack of affection for her, enlists Zoe''s help to win him over. McClosky desires Zoe for himself, and when she rejects his proposition, he plots to have her sold with the rest of the slaves, for he knows that she is an octoroon and is legally part of the Terrebonne property. He plans to buy her and make her his mistress. McClosky intercepts a young slave boy, Paul, who is bringing a mailbag to the house which contains a letter from one of Judge Peyton''s old debtors. Since this letter would allow Mrs. Peyton to avoid selling Terrebonne, McClosky kills Paul and takes the letter. The murder is captured on Scudder''s photographic apparatus. Paul''s best friend, the Indian Wahnotee, discovers Paul''s body; he can speak only poor English, however, and is unable to communicate the tragedy to anyone else. George and Zoe reveal their love for each other, but Zoe rejects George''s marriage proposal. When George asks why, Zoe explains that she is an octoroon, and the law prevents a white man from marrying anyone with the smallest black heritage. George offers to take her to a different country, but Zoe insists that she stay to help Terrebonne; Scudder then appears and suggests that George marry Dora. With Dora''s wealth, he explains, Terrebonne will not be sold and the slaves will not have to be separated. George reluctantly agrees. George goes to Dora and begins to propose to her; while he is doing so, however, he has a change of heart and decides not to lie to her. He and Zoe admit to their love of each other; a heartbroken Dora leaves. The auctioneer arrives, along with prospective buyers, McClosky among them. After various slaves are auctioned off, George and the buyers are shocked to see Zoe up on the stand. McClosky has proved that Judge Peyton did not succeed in legally freeing her, as he had meant to do. Dora then reappears and bids on Zoe – she has sold her own plantation in order to rescue Terrebonne. McClosky, however, outbids her for Zoe; George is restrained from attacking him by his friends. The buyers gather to take away the slaves they have purchased on a steamship. They have realized that Paul is missing, and most believe him dead. Wahnotee appears, drunk and sorrowful, and tells them that Paul is buried near them. The men accuse Wahnotee of the murder, and McClosky calls for him to be lynched. Scudder insists that they hold a trial, and the men search for evidence. Just as McClosky points out the blood on Wahnotee''s tomahawk, the oldest slave, Pete, comes to give them the photographic plate which has captured McClosky''s deed. The men begin to call for McClosky to be lynched, but Scudder convinces them to send him to jail instead. The men leave to fetch the authorities, but McClosky escapes. Stealing a lantern, he sets fire to the steamship that had the slaves on it. Wahnotee tracks him down and confronts him; in the ensuing struggle, Wahnotee kills McClosky. Back at Terrebonne Zoe returns but with a sad heart as she knows that she and George can never be together. In an act of desperation she drinks a vial of poison, and Scudder enters to deliver the good news that McClosky was proven guilty of murdering Paul and that Terrebonne now belongs to George. Despite the happiness Zoe stands dying and the play ends with her death on the sitting room couch and George kneeling beside her.

The Octoroon

Fight Club centers on an anonymous Narrator, who works as a product recall specialist for an unnamed car company. Because of the stress of his job and the jet lag brought upon by frequent business trips, he begins to suffer from recurring insomnia. When he seeks treatment, the Narrator's doctor advises him to visit a support group for testicular cancer victims to "see what real suffering is like". The Narrator finds that sharing the problems of others -- despite not actually having testicular cancer himself -- alleviates his insomnia. The narrator's unique treatment works until he meets Marla Singer, another "tourist" who visits the support group under false pretenses. The possibly disturbed Marla reminds the Narrator that he is a faker who does not belong there. He begins to hate Marla for keeping him from crying, and, therefore, from sleeping. After a confrontation, the two agree to attend separate support group meetings to avoid each other. The truce is uneasy, however, and the Narrator's insomnia returns. Whilst on a nude beach, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden, a charismatic extremist of mysterious means. After an explosion destroys the narrator's condominium, he asks to stay at Tyler's house. Tyler agrees, but asks for something in return: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." Both men find that they enjoy the ensuing fistfight. They subsequently move in together and establish a "fight club", drawing countless men with similar temperaments into bare-knuckle fighting matches, set to the following rules: Later in the book, a mechanic tells the Narrator about two new rules of the fight club: that nobody is the center of the fight club except for the two men fighting, and that the fight club will always be free. Marla, noticing that the Narrator hasn't recently attended his support groups, calls him to claim that she has overdosed on Xanax in a half-hearted suicide attempt. Tyler returns from work, picks up the phone to Marla's drug-induced rambling, and rescues her. Tyler and Marla embark on an uneasy affair that confounds the Narrator and confuses Marla. Throughout this affair, Marla is unaware both of fight club's existence and the interaction between Tyler and the Narrator. Because Tyler and Marla are never seen at the same time, the Narrator wonders if Tyler and Marla are the same person. As fight club attains a nationwide presence, Tyler uses it to spread his anti-consumerist ideas, recruiting fight club's members to participate in increasingly elaborate pranks on corporate America. He eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members and forms "Project Mayhem," a cult-like organization that trains itself as an army to bring down modern civilization. This organization, like fight club, is controlled by a set of rules: While initially a loyal participant in Project Mayhem, the Narrator becomes uncomfortable with the increasing destructiveness of its activities. He resolves to stop Tyler and his followers when Bob, a friend of his from the testicular cancer support group, is killed during one of Project Mayhem's sabotage operations. However, the Narrator learns that he himself is Tyler; Tyler is not a separate person, but a separate personality. As the Narrator's mental state deteriorated, his mind formed a new personality that was able to escape from the problems of his life. Marla inadvertently reveals to the Narrator that he and Tyler are the same person. Tyler's affair with Marla was actually his own affair with Marla. The Narrator's bouts of insomnia had actually been Tyler's personality surfacing. Tyler would be active whenever the Narrator was "sleeping." The Tyler personality not only created fight club, but also blew up the Narrator's condo. Tyler plans to blow up a skyscraper using homemade bombs created by Project Mayhem; the actual target of the explosion, however, is the nearby national museum. Tyler plans to die as a martyr during this event, taking the Narrator's life as well. Realizing this, the Narrator sets out to stop Tyler, although Tyler is always thinking ahead of him. The Narrator makes his way to the roof of the building, where he is held at gunpoint by Tyler. However, when Marla comes to the roof with one of the support groups, Tyler vanishes, as he "was his hallucination, not hers." With Tyler gone, the Narrator waits for the bomb to explode and kill him. However, the bomb malfunctions because Tyler mixed paraffin into the explosives. Still alive and holding Tyler's gun, the narrator makes the first decision that is truly his own: he puts the gun in his mouth and shoots himself. Some time later, he awakens in a mental hospital, believing that he is in Heaven arguing with God over human nature. The book ends with the Narrator being approached by hospital employees who reveal themselves to be Project members. They tell him that their plans still continue, and that they are expecting Tyler to come back.

Fight Club

The novel takes place after the events of 1635: The Cannon Law, in which French Huguenot extremist Michel Ducos came close to assassinating Pope Urban VIII and forced to flee with his followers from Rome. The leaders of the French Huguenot group under Ducos settled in Scotland making plans to embarrass Cardinal Richelieu. Michel also has left strict instructions for several of his followers, led by Guillaume Locquifier, in Frankfurt to do nothing until he gives them new orders. Meanwhile, Duke Henri de Rohan, the highest ranking Huguenot, has his own group of agents monitoring events throughout Europe. He also would like to see Richelieu removed from office, but he views the radical actions of Ducos as self-defeating. After having learning the events in Rome, Henri writes letters to his agents in Grantville, Frankfurt and elsewhere warning of the escape of Ducos and ordering them to notify him if Ducos appears. Rohan has two double agents working within the Ducos operation. Jacques-Pierre Dumais is one of the double agents working for the Duke, who works in Grantville as a garbage collector while secretly examining 20th century knowledge that are discarded by the American residents. Spymaster Francisco Nasi has also been trying to track down Ducos. His agents and others have been sending reports on activities in Grantville and elsewhere within the State of Thuringia-Franconia. In the midst, the United States of Europe elections are taking place which incumbent Prime Minister Mike Stearns is sure that his political party will lose these. But he figures that his opponent William Wettin will overextend himself and his respective Crown Loyalists party. Ducos'' Huguenots in Frankfurt plans a demonstration and action in Grantville to vilify Richelieu by making assassinations on Grantville''s powerful figures: Mayor Henry Dreeson and Methodist Enoch Wiley (as attempts on individuals such as Mike Stearns and Gustavus Adolphus remain impossible to do). The assassinations are successfully carried out during several manipulated demonstrations against vaccination and autopsies through down-timers and an anti-Semitic incident at Grantville''s synagogue as covers for the assassination. In the aftermath, the results did not came out as the Huguenots had planned: Nasi, Stearns, and several others figured out the cause for the assassinations. Although, they and other like-minded are shocked by the provocative actions of the anti-Semites and decided to use the incident as a result of antisemitic influences to justify the total eradication of all antisemitic forces in the area controlled by Grantville''s allies.

1635: The Dreeson Incident

The New Inquisition is the author''s term for what he refers to as a tendency within mainstream science to forbid certain forms of theories from being classed as "science." He cites the cases of Wilhelm Reich, Rupert Sheldrake, and the Mars effect controversy, among others, in support of a central claim that a materialist bias within the scientific community has led to some speculations and theories he claimed were unjustly thought of as unscientific. "The Citadel" is the author''s term for the military-industrial complex that he claims funds mainstream science and is the source of its bias. The book lists a large list of paranormal reports, (from the Fortean times among others) with Wilsons tour of the history of modern physics. He is particularly interested in Bell''s theorem, and Alain Aspect''s experimental proof of Bell''s theorem. Wilson opines that the implications of Aspect''s proof include that magic is possible, and that "the sum total of all minds is one". He claims the facts that he thinks that it is not a coincidence that the darwinian model of evolution best suits the "reality tunnel" of the Citadel, and that biologists such as Sheldrake who have alternative theories of evolution, are drummed out of mainstream science. On the topic, he states, Among the concepts covered is the idea of "absolute laws of physics" - he ends up saying that every "law" that has been investigated seemed to be subject to anomalous results from time to time, and that there may be some other parallel universe with absolute laws of physics that are always obeyed, but Wilson has not seen any sign of it round in this one. Wilson draws on a large number of accounts of recorded events said to be "paranormal" but dismissed by materialist science as mass hallucination, e.g. the visions in Fátima, Portugal, and various UFO sightings. He comments that when it comes to 70,000 people having a mass hallucination, it''s difficult to see how the explanation is any less occult than the events the explanation purports to explain. "You try it", he writes "See if by any means you can induce a mass hallucination [...] try, saying, hey, take a look at that light over there brighter than the sun." The book lists a lot of phenomena that the author claims do not fit neatly into a materialist account of the world, and secondly, the book introduces various interpretations of quantum physics that may or may not provide a ground for explanation. The book concludes with the idea which he claims Schrödinger supported, that the sum total of all minds is one, and that individual brains are best understood as local receivers, of an overall transmission which is always everywhere. The author repeatedly says "I am not asking you to believe any of this stuff, I''m just asking you to dispassionately observe your own reaction to these accounts".

The New Inquisition

Mma Ramotswe and her new husband settle down to married life with their foster-children, but problems are piling up. At Mr J.L.B. Matekoni''s own house, the tenant is running an illegal drinking den. Mma Ramotswe''s violent ex-husband Note Mokote reappears. Then Charlie, the apprentice, gets entangled with a wealthy married woman. Help arrives in the person of Mr Polopetsi, whom Mma Ramotswe accidentally knocks off his bicycle with her van. He has been unemployed following a spell in prison after what appears to have been a miscarriage of justice, and Mma Ramotswe persuades her husband to employ him out of guilt and sympathy, but he proves an asset to the garage. Mma Makutsi''s love prospects improve when she starts dancing lessons and is partnered with another student, Mr Radiphuti. At first she tries to avoid him, as he is awkward and stammers, but he turns out to be a kind and gentle man and a romance begins. She removes some of Mma Ramotswe''s burden of worry by solving an important fraud investigation on her own, and manoeuvring Charlie back to work. Mr Radiphuti''s father enlists the help of Mma Ramotswe to put a proposal of marriage from his shy son to Mma Makutsi, and the two become engaged.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

While investigating an alien derelict, Geordi La Forge and Data are sent to a solar system several light-years away by a transporter with interstellar range, to a similar derelict orbiting an Earth-like planet. Once there, they are mistaken for "the Builders", those who the planet''s native populace, a culture similar to late-20th-century Earth, believe are the creators of the derelict, which they call the "Repository of the Gifts". One of the natives, Shar-Lon, discovered the Repository some years before and used its "Gifts" (advanced technology) to end planetary wars that were leading to a possible nuclear holocaust. However, Shar-Lon''s use of the Gifts since that time has led to a worldwide perception of himself and his supporters, the Peacekeepers, as a suppressive force that has limited the social and technological advancement of their people. Assuming the role of "Builders" in order to assess their situation, La Forge and Data are drawn into the social politics of the Peacekeepers and their world, and must extract themselves from the situation and find a way back to the Enterprise without further harming the natives'' culture and violating the Prime Directive.

The Peacekeepers

The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke''s disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself. Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an Iron Cross from a visiting U-boat captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator''s perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator''s inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke. Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. Mahlke''s main reason for entering the war in the first place was to make a speech at his school afterwards. Since he is denied that wish, Mahlke deserts his post, seeing no other reason to fight. Desertion implies treason and in consequence death. Pilenz, whose relationship to Mahlke becomes increasingly ambivalent, takes advantage of the situation and pressures an unwell Mahlke to dive into the wreck once more to hide, aware that Mahlke might not survive the dive. Pilenz never sees Mahlke again.

Cat and Mouse

15 year old Neil Miller is orphaned following a car accident and goes to live with his grandparents in Winchelsea, England. Neil suffers post traumatic stress from the car accident and stays detached from his peers despite their occasional attempts to involve him. News travels of a new disease, called the Calcutta Plague due to its origin, which accelerates the aging process in human beings. The plague is uniformly fatal, and although initially only affects those of already advanced years (claiming an old teacher at his school and both his grandparents,) it quickly progresses until it takes the life of a 2 year old girl that Neil finds and attempts to look after. During this time Neil notes that he has contracted the plague, but after a brief fever it leaves him unaffected. The death of the girl (and earlier her 4 year old brother) leaves Neil the sole survivor of Winchelsea, and after deciding that Winchelsea is becoming dangerous - due in part to packs of wild dogs - he leaves for London, taking first a manual Mini which he has difficulty driving, followed by an automatic Jaguar. Arriving in London he meets his first fellow survivor - the mentally unbalanced Clive, who although friendly towards Neil, during the night vandalizes his car to the point of destroying it, steals his mother''s ring that Neil had kept, and then abandons him in central London. After finding the body of another survivor who has committed suicide barely hours before Neil found him, he is again despondent, but finds evidence of other survivors which brings him into contact with Billie and Lucy. Billie is openly hostile towards Neil, and it is implied that she has suffered in some way either during the plague or directly after it, but Neil becomes friends with Lucy and starts a romantic relationship with her - much to Billie''s disgust. During this time Neil notes that the dogs have been supplanted by even more dangerous rats, and at least one big cat has escaped from a local zoo and although unseen is heard outside their flat. To this end Neil arms himself with a pistol and ammunition taken from a sporting goods shop. Billie and Neil continue to argue over an unspecified period of time, with Lucy gradually taking Neils side in arguments, until eventually during a foraging expedition Billie attempts to kill Neil by stabbing him in the back with a kitchen knife. The attack is shown to be premeditated as when Neil tries to defend himself with the gun he finds that it has been unloaded. Neil is injured, but overpowers Billie and returns to Lucy, where they lock Billie out and decide to move on to a previously discussed farmhouse. Billie arrives back at the house and pleads with both Lucy and Neil to let her back in, but they decide that they could never trust her again, and leave her outside. In the last paragraph of the book Neil abruptly changes his mind, feeling that he would never get over the guilt of leaving Billie to die, and with Lucy goes downstairs to open the door and let her back inside.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Mandragora

By David McRobbie

Anna Lombard

No Author Listed

Roadwork

By Stephen King

Murder Must Advertise

By Dorothy L. Sayers

The Octoroon

By Dion Boucicault

Fight Club

By Chuck Palahniuk

1635: The Dreeson Incident

By Virginia DeMarce

The New Inquisition

By Robert Anton Wilson

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

By Alexander McCall Smith

The Peacekeepers

By Gene DeWeese

Cat and Mouse

By Günter Grass

Empty World

By Samuel Youd