The Shadow rears his nosy head again in a new, completely unauthorized adventure of lust, drugs, bizarrely misshapen female consorts...and shipboard romance. Accompanied by Charles P. Loafer, Esq., his always present side-kick, apprentice, gambler, former all-night hat check girl at Booth's Booth, corner Telephone & Telephone, and all around general handyman, master of few, jack of none, Lamont is on his way to the Orient aboard a cruise liner absent the entire crew. Along the way are canoe voyages through Bleak Regions; a ride on Air Force One (morphed into a reconstructed noodle box)...

A long-suffering husband contracts a hit man to take out his wife-but the deadly endgame is not what he's bargained for...The stress of corporate politics leads a middle manager to consult a friend with a closeted Third World armory at his disposal-and a horrific plan evolves about how to get even with the office... ...In "Hamlin's Wood," a reclusive one-legged amputee watches his life unravel after his wife leaves him and he hires a devious handyman who wants to exchange wages for the privilege of hunting in his pristine woodlot... ...The double entendre titled story "Pawn" pits a man slowly...

Labor Day weekend, 1966. Three high school buddies who haven't seen each other in five years plan a quiet get-together. One is a Navy recruit, another's a failing entrepreneur, the third's on the lam from a mobster goon squad. When the three attempt a reunion the result is anything but quiet. First, there's a brig escape during a driving hurricane. Then a hostage situation involving a stolen Cessna. The entrepreneur's latest venture is trashed during an insane week-long party. Eventually everyone ends up at a barrier island psychiatric treatment center for prominent loonies suffering from...