Rather a mixed bag, and featuring a lot of the usual Carroll tropes such as dogs, gods, and story endings that plummet off a cliff or just run out of steam.

Some were stronger than others and had less of a 'oh, is that it?' effect. Some are very short but quite disturbing, such as the title story about the man on a train who meets a woman and her daughter. I'd read it previously, probably in a collection of dark fantasy/horror stories by assorted authors, and also had a deja vu feeling about 'Friend's Best Man', where a man saves his dog.

Two stories are reprints of stories told in the 'A Child Across the Sky' novel, or else Carroll wrote them first and subsequently decided to include them in that novel: 'Mr Fiddlehead' and 'A Quarter Past You'. Some of the stories go nowhere - the longer 'Uh-Oh City' builds up to something then fizzles out - and this is not dissimilar to the endings of some of Carroll's novels. ( )

Excellent collection of short stories from Jonathan Carroll. Very Carroll-y: there's God, dogs in almost every story, life after death... Some stories warm, some funny, some can be classified as horror. As in any short story collection, there are favourites and duller moments, but overall the quality of the stories is good. ( )