Two seasonal tales of the unco' uncanny.... 'Tis the season, after all. GMW Wemyss takes us to the Wiltshire of his Village Tales novels, where something dark is lurking in a wood older than Stonehenge ... until the duke, as usual, and the Rector, sort it. (Apparently, a case of possession can, actually, be stopped by a brilliant throw in to the wicket. Sometimes....) And Markham Shaw Pyle takes us out 'West of One-Hundredth', to a part of Texas where anything can happen. And does: raising a problem of law and ethics, and the positively howling question, 'When does the beast crowd out the...

In this, the complete edition of the work (also published in two parts), the Woolfonts rally 'round in a time of crisis. Teddy Gates, newly on Council, has been the victim of a cross-party stitch-up on social housing in his ward. (The duke Has An Idea for for confounding the politicians and frustrating their knavish tricks....) The Rector and Sher Mirza are being driven spare by well-meaning meddling. The Breener is in for a shock; Edmond is riding for a fall. And then the duke suffers a family tragedy and the Rector collapses from stress.... Of course, this is the Woolfonts. With the Dean...

In this, the first part of the second Village Tales novel, changes come to the Woolfonts, and a family tragedy to the duke. Teddy Gates has been the victim of a cross-party stitch-up on Council, which His Grace is determined to solve; the Rector is under increasing strain from the well-meaning; Snook the Sexton gets odder by the day; and the Free School is want of a new Maths master. And then the duke's scapegrace brother, Lord Crispin, turns up....

In this, the second part of the second Village Tale, the Woolfonts are reeling from the loss in the ducal family, the knock-on effects on the duke's health, and the breakdown under stress of the Rector's iron constitution. The aftershocks of the dirty dealings by his fellow Councillors which Teddy Gates has suffered, for all the duke's crafty retrieval of the situation, still reverberate. The Bishop is dreading a possible upheaval in the neighbouring parishes; Edmond Huskisson is being forced to learn how to balance his domestic and his activist commitments. Then again, this is the Woolfonts:...

The beloved Village Tales continue: Four-and-twenty January hours, midnight to midnight, in the Woolfonts; foaling and the imminence of lambing season, births and deaths, plans, projects, and pints down the Boar. Old friends: the duke (when pried away from TMS and the Test Match coverage), Canon Paddick, Sher Mirza, Teddy and Edmond, Gwen and the Breener (and the twins): and new, in the Downland parishes and on the little farms, go the noiseless tenor of their ways, as the sheep huddle and the beer is brewed and the modern steam locomotives shunt. Peace is upon the land, and the lighted...