Teenage film star Teddy Montaigne carries around a secret: his childhood of imprisonment and emotional abuse by a rabidly possessive mother. When she reappears in his life to reclaim him, he's primed to exact vengeance, subtly, devastatingly… if only Nickie, this irritating girl who knows his secret, will stop insisting it's time to forgive, as if she sees something he doesn't. The intense personal drama of A Mother's Love, the novel at the center of this collection, is echoed in a companion piece, The Pipe, a tale of abuse and vengeance that unfolds in a different time and setting, but with an ending as unexpected and revealing as that of A Mother's Love. Two other stories also revolve around sharp personal conflict: The General Dances (a war hero confronts a bigoted hotel manager) and Brother-in Law (infidelity splinters a tight-knit family into warring factions). Rounding out the collection are four tales that bring sly comic relief: The Garbage Coat (a professor gives the gift that keeps on taking), Voice Mail (a wrong number involves a widower in a young couple's roller-coaster romance), Knight to E.R. (a chess player's brilliant move is nearly fatal) and Mole Killer (a novelist discovers his editor is the publisher's twelve-year-old daughter).