A sacked hedge fund manager has no trouble in making the transition to holding up banks in the short novel that opens this collection. It is followed by novellas about vanishing people in a hospital, a disappearing priest in a church, mad inventors who solve obesity and fuel problems at the same time, two crooks and a cat in a haunted house, a Texan who brings new insights into northern politics, and a man who finds a vital piece of his anatomy atop the hat of a striking blond entering St. Patrick's Cathedral to see the Pope.