From Madrid to Heaven

In these stories Madrid is the apex of a triangle stretching to Lisbon and Tangier. Characters meet the unexpected in a borderland between Europe and Africa, from the fall of dictators to a surge in trans-Mediterranean migration.

An Arab businessman heading into exile in Madrid finds himself eerily like a native Madrile o bent on fleeing Spanish justice by disappearing into Africa.

An art dealer sent to Tangier to value the collection of an equivocal World War II migr - Jewish or Nazi - finds its missing canvases in an unexpected place.

The negligence of a son, reluctantly joining his parents in Madrid after aimless world travels, fully returns a feared father who has long outlived himself to life.

A young woman thought to be a loser escapes a predatory Mother Superior to achieve strange triumph with an imprisoned Basque terrorist.

In the title story an expatriate, too self-absorbed in Madrid to have contacted his London-bound brother during his lifetime, somehow finally sees him. He raises a glass of wine to toast: "From Madrid to Heaven - De Madrid al Cielo".

These stories take characters and readers alike to surprising edges of experience.