Colours figure highly in this second book of short stories by Deryck Whittaker. Whether they be the auspicious or otherwise hues of a north-oriented front door; the red of the ubiquitous laterite of the African bush; the grey amber essential to perfume manufacture; the dark green of a coveted Finnish glass piece; the magenta of the colour shift in old photos; the blue eponym of an extreme right wing movement or the orange of a swimming costume bought in M&S by a woman of a certain age.

 
As in Whittaker’s earlier book, we find ourselves in an array of locations worldwide, and introduced to a near-debauched community on a suburban housing estate; Oscar Wilde; Dante; Gabriel Rossetti; Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick; a thinly disguised General Pinochet and Idi Amin; a superannuated Superman and a cast of characters from the Guinness Book of Records.

It’s a voyage in which we encounter the quick and the dead, the obese, the doomed, the obsessive, the haunted, the guilty, the guilt-ridden and the thankful. It will interest readers who enjoy short tales and quick wit.