The Devil Spinners

Meet The Devil Spinners: edge-dwellers, poets and lovable scoundrels who bluster, blunder and bellow their way to redemption-or not-between stops at Crawley's Pub. Each faces a moment of life-bafflement, brief or prolonged, that finds resolution through a shift in perception, an unexpected intervention, a kind word, or in one case, an insect. The stories are set on the B.C. coast in an indeterminate era when screens, though present, have not yet dominated every public place. At Crawley's, live conversation rules and a haphazard harmony prevails as bartender Gabe and her co-workers serve a ragtag assortment of neighbourhood regulars. Over the course of fifteen stories, we find Mike the lawyer advising Sam the towboat man on his faulty DUI charge, Haley the musician describing to Gabe how a detour in his travels led to lessons in devil spinning, the mad Professor Weibel refereeing the Great Debate over the ethics of Dutch the Greek, and the hapless Fredrik being bullied by a beetle. At a table against the wall, Beets the poet ruminates on the tyrannies of self-awareness, while down the road, ex-server Erin hatches a wicked plot for severing ties with Edward... According to Haley, everyone is a devil spinner, though not every formula is freeing: "Sometimes we spin to make the needle skip, sometimes we spin for the comfort of the groove."

Whether they favour the skips or the grooves, readers who appreciate a novel twist in a well-spun yarn, liberally laced with humour and heart, will find congenial company in The Devil Spinners.