“It’s novel (no pun intended), ingenious, inventive, imaginative, intricate, mischievous, poignant, punchy, unexpected, and demonstrates great linguistic dexterity. It really does take you to other worlds. I wrote ‘brilliant’ on the Contents page beside ‘The Grim Reaper’s Apprentice’ on first reading of the book, but on the second reading decided that all the tales are so ingenious in their way I wouldn’t have been able to choose between them at Mullahy’s Rock.” A.B., previously of the Financial Times and a former book editor.

The Woman with a Man in her Hat is an irreverent romp of a book. It takes the reader across the ghostly bridge of their imagination into wild and wonderful lands inhabited by a murderous policeman obsessed with and continually outwitted by small furry animals, a nymph called Three Things by virtue of her habit of following every three good deeds with three horribly bad ones (a very balanced person...), an assortment of incompetent half-fallen angels, Grim Reapers and other strange spirits of a dubious nature, a mad prophetess whose downfall is caused by a bedraggled thief of a pussy cat that steals the source of her power, a variety of eccentric clergy, including a platoon of tap dancing monks, a man who turns into his trousers, a giant whose sneezing nearly blows the top off a mountain - and a whole host of other baffling and beguiling characters who spring from the imagination of the storytellers who hold everything together. They do so under the guidance of the terrifying master of ceremonies at the the Mullahy's Rock Annual Storytelling Competition, Fierce Betty Nolan. This is a book that is in every sense truly original...