Mercy and Other Stories

Still waters run deep and characters are not always what they seem in the 16 stories that make up this engrossing collection of offbeat fiction from British author Lloyd (Halfling). In "Mercy," a woman discovers to her dismay why it is that her widower brother-in-law talks about her dead sister as though she's still around. In "The Bath," a caring friend who believes that his neighbor has duped his wife into thinking that she's a dolphin rescues the woman from her home situation, but makes the mistake of letting her take a swim at the seaside. Not until halfway through "The Lover" is it revealed that the two "girls" the main character expresses his fondness for are bears that he is training for a circus act. Lloyd's oblique approach to relationships and events in these stories makes their world seem slightly off-kilter and unpredictable, and her sparing use of detail suggests even stranger things are happening than are being shown, as in "The Gathering," in which the lack of clear description for a weird phenomenon two men are trying to capture on film makes it seem all the more menacing. Even the stories that are not genuinely macabre are memorable for their eccentric characters and peculiar situations. (July)