Patrick McCabe is the acclaimed author of The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto--both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into films by Neil Jordan--and Winterwood, which was awarded the 2007 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year award. Hello Mr. Bones and Goodbye Mr. Rat, two dark tales from two deceased narrators--bottled-lightning treats that will make you gasp, shiver and squirm. In Hello Mr. Bones two damaged souls have--thanks to each other's love--turned their lives around. But as London's weather takes a turn for the worse, so do their fates, and raw evil runs riot the night of the impossible hurricane.

Goodbye Mr. Rat centers around the spirit of an IRA bomber watching over his ex-lover as she takes his ashes back to his rural hometown. This girl from northern Indiana may not be ready for rural Ireland, yet the townsfolk of Iron Valley certainly have plans for her. In this stark, blackly humorous story, McCabe writes like M. R. James if he took a wrong turn onto an Irish country road.