In "Hi! Howya Doin!" an intrusive jogger meets with an abrupt fate; in "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a young woman’s romantic view of her girlhood is devastated by her father’s confessions; and in "Valentine, July Heat Wave" a man prepares a gruesome surprise for the wife who has betrayed him. In the title story, a young woman tries to rescue her mother from the museum of Dr. Moses—with unexpected results. And the children of a notorious serial killer struggle to "decode" the patterns behind their father’s seemingly random acts in "Bad Habits."

In these and other suspenseful stories, Joyce Carol Oates explores with chilling accuracy the ways in which evil enters our lives. The Museum of Dr. Moses is another masterpiece from "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation).