Travel, sex, death and love - a most surprising collection of stories. 'I love airports. I love the opera of airports . . . Families with high-gloss airport emotion, a linkage of smiles, tears and touching. A moratorium on malice, air-conditioned goodwill. When the airport sanctuary is left, the automatic doors open into the sweaty heat and blown litter, and they also re-open the wounds of the family and the dust blows into the lacerations.' In an odyssey which moves across a world stage, Tales of Mystery and Romance touches high comedy and low farce - the non-event of the Jack Kerouac Wake, the dispute over the exact form of secular penetration achieved by Milton, an argument with an ex-wife over 'motel sex' - and much tender and perceptive observation. You will come away from this book at least knowing something about belly dancers, the intricacies of homosexual sex, and even life after death.