The Meat EatersMichael Collins's stories are about Ireland, about the Irish as they are and as they would like to be imagined. In the title story we see the fatal consequences of self deception. Posing as a nationalist hero, a young man travels to America with a suitcase full of meat. The warm welcome he expects swiftly dematerialises as he awakes to the grim realities of life in hiding. The vivid, surreal splendour of the writing allied with images of real people

Julia is connected to the dead man

Doors spring open

It's all in a day's work for Lt Dick Coward and Sgt Tom Price on their second published adventure

The only certainty is that if he is to save his men

One who is plagued by his own demons

let him get on with his shaving and find his way downstairs

All seems to be going well

as she is known

And that's before he comes up against America's most feared serial killer

We are hidden

Archaeological fever strikes

By setting excerpts of Brian Merriman's Cirt an Mhen Oche (The Midnight Court) within the acoustic of a classical myth (the story of Orpheus and Eurydice)