The 16 tales in this book range in length from 115 pages for "Whizzers" down to a single page for "Commuter," and are arranged in order of length from the longest down to the shortest. Each tale is distinctly different from its 15 neighbors and none is longer than it needs to be to carry the plot.

Some of the characters are those almost mythical ''real Vermonters'' and some are folks who were born elsewhere but had the good fortune to relocate in Vermont. One is a wild turkey, one is a colonial ghost, one is from the very distant past, and one is from the future. The rest are folks you might meet at a town meeting or a restaurant. Two of the stories in this book were previously published; "A Long Winter''s Nap" appeared in the February, 1999 issue of Alfred Hitchcock''s Mystery Magazine, and "The Infernal Machine" appeared in issue Number 2, Winter 93/94, of OffWorld, a nice little magazine that didn''t survive.

The 16 tales in this book range in length from 115 pages for "Whizzers" down to a single page for "Commuter," and are arranged in order of length from the longest down to the shortest. Each tale is distinctly different from its 15 neighbors and none is longer than it needs to be to carry the plot.

Some of the characters are those almost mythical ''real Vermonters'' and some are folks who were born elsewhere but had the good fortune to relocate in Vermont. One is a wild turkey, one is a colonial ghost, one is from the very distant past, and one is from the future. The rest are folks you might meet at a town meeting or a restaurant. Two of the stories in this book were previously published; "A Long Winter''s Nap" appeared in the February, 1999 issue of Alfred Hitchcock''s Mystery Magazine, and "The Infernal Machine" appeared in issue Number 2, Winter 93/94, of OffWorld, a nice little magazine that didn''t survive.