An amateur goalkeeper is frozen solid in a moment of ecstasy as he makes his perfect save. A young man finds himself drawn into the auto-erotic asphyxiation fantasies of his deceased uncle. Two men hunt the elusive Scottish wildcat, one of them a cuckold, the other his cuckolder. A photographer navigates the rapids of London?s fashion-media elite and struggles to remain afloat in a sea of drugs. From Amsterdam to deepest Devon, from Naples to New York, and from all corners of London to Manchester?s Northern Quarter, these stories feature a parade of mad women, male neurotics, lovesick morticians, frustrated pizza waiters and psychotic serial killers. Like a funnier Ian McEwan or a kinder Will Self, Nicholas Royle?s tales are skewed vignettes of the way we live now.