A surreal journey through the depths of a madman's mind, as a mysterious female visitor torments him with strange tales about ... a crafty shoeshine boy with a unique way of drumming up business, a fast-talking professor who hates marching bands, a pirate who digs up an astonishing treasure chest and then throws away the priceless contents, a young lady who enters a forbidden room in a gloomy mansion and discovers an incredibly detailed dollhouse with a deadly secret, and Cleopatra, whose passionate poetry inflames Marc Antony, with disastrous consequences.

Stan Carter lives in Bellevue, Nebraska. He has been in the newspaper business for nearly 30 years, serving as a reporter, copy editor, columnist, typesetter and paginator at various publications. He is the author of five novels published by Gypsy Shadow: "Petchy Maligula," "The Depraved Dances of Taram Zhod," "The Caskian Scandal," "The Extortions of Stiffani Voydalle" and "Kill My Husband."