A collection of haunting short stories from the author of Climbers, Signs of Life and In Viriconium – described by Iain Banks as ‘A Zen master of prose’. Peter Ebert, obsessed by the record of a 1930s journey through an unknown country, is rescued by a woman whose face is a map. Two holiday-makers return from Tenerife haunted by the trinket-seller who has brought them together. Meanwhile a refugee from the East encounters fear and loathing in the bars and patisseries of Soho, and a young man undertakes a series of random rail journeys decided by the fall of the Tarot cards… A collection of obliquely fantastic tales, grounded in contemporary reality, into which obtrude flashes of a world beyond our world, a world which would transform the lives of the characters, if only they knew how to find it.