The Omega Force

Rick Moody offers a stunningly diverse trio of stories:

'The Albertine Notes' presents a cataclysmic vision of New York City after the levelling of fifty square blocks of Manhattan by a suitcase bomb. Four million have died. Albertine, the 'street name for the buzz of a lifetime', is a mind-altering drug through which survivors seek solace in the past.

'K&K' concerns lonely young Ellie Knight-Cameron, office manager at insurance agency Kolodny & Kolodny, where the office suggestion box is yielding unpleasant messages that escalate to a scary pitch.

And at the centre of 'The Omega Force' is a buffoonish former government official in rocky recovery. Dr 'Jamie' Van Deusen is determined to protect his habitat - its golf courses (and Bloody Marys) and pizza places (and beers) from 'dark-complected' foreign nationals. His patriotism and wild imagination are mainly fuelled by a fall off the wagon . . .