GRAVEN IMAGES

From the author of The Half-a-Moon Inn; three polished tales set in the past and told with dexterous application of old genre techniques. The first makes a cracking little whodunit of a reclusive old woman, her deaf hired girl who can lip-read secrets, and the mysterious death of a whole ship's crew. The second makes a light courtship comedy of a lovesick shoemaker's apprentice who reads personal guidance into the direction faced by the saint on a broken weather vane, and constructs love messages in the language of flowers that only he is aware of. In the third story, a poor, snobbish sculptor is given a commission by an unsavory ghost, who destroys the sculptor's illusions about his high-and-mighty idols. Fleischman establishes a storyteller's hold on his audience; they can put themselves in his hands with the assurance that they won't be disappointed—and that all the surprises will be well within the established conventions.