An early morning adventure out stealing horses leads to the tragic death of one boy and a resulting lifetime of guilt and isolation for his friend, in this moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever.

"As 1944 comes to a close, nine-year-old Raj is unaware of the war devastating the rest of the world. He lives in Mauritius, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, where survival is a daily struggle for his family. After a brutal beating lands Raj in the hospital of a prison camp, he meets David, a boy his own age. David is a refugee, one of a groups of Jewish exiles now indefinitely detained in Mauritius. When a massive storm on the island brings chaos...

A collection of stories explores the mundane and the dangerous in daily life, including tales of a husband obsessed with female serial killers and a bureaucrat who converts to Buddhism to gain power.