The other horse traders are over there in the 7-Eleven. These horses are jittery and I don’t know how long I can hold them. That piebald one there—or is that a paint? It’s a Holstein for all I know, and 

Nakata visited the vacant lot for several days. One morning it rained heavily, so he spent the day doing simple woodwork in his room, but apart from that he bided his time seated in the weeds 

No Tahoe in the lot. Which was bullcrap. Because only on-duty officers were supposed to drive the Tahoe, and he was the on-duty officer, so somebody had the Tahoe who wasn’t supposed 

“Look, Frank, trick-or-treaters,” Carrie said, breaking the silence of the last hour. “What are they doing all the way out here?”

“Here” was a country back road, eastern Alabama. Halloween, 1981.

The first time it happened I could forgive myself. Cutting across the hall from my office and glimpsing a man—pale, wearing metal-rimmed glasses, a thin man in a light-colored rolled-sleeve shirt 

Buddy Millar was the kind of driver who avoided traveling on a main road with other cars. This distaste for sharing the highway often took him rough-wheeling across the prairie or into a labyrinth 

April comes and April goes, and May, and June, all passing by without shedding a drop of rain. The sky has been a blue desert since spring. The sun rises every morning, a bright white disk growing 

Luc lay atop the sheets of his bunk bed, staring at a dim patch of light on the ceiling. To summon sleep, he cataloged the odors wafting through his window: roasted almonds, fermenting grapes,

First came the Nip. Then the Whirl. Elana pumped her fists and rose from the chair, head bobbing, until she bumped a low branch and loosed a rain of cicada shells. Sighing, Sam plucked the molted

The first shipment was lost in the Atlantic in mid-October. Six hundred china dolls went to the bottom not far out from Rotterdam, with nothing either divine or human to prevent that disastrous