A quiet night in the neighbourhood pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive. A funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts won't settle. A shooting sees an everyday call-out lead a policewoman to confront the banality of her own existence. In eight stories, Colin Barrett takes us to the barren backwaters of County Mayo, via Canada, and - with an eye for the abrupt and absurd - illuminates the lives of outcasts, misfits and malcontents.