FICTION
Double Jackpot

It’s often said that a great book brings the reader into a unique world of the author’s making. Baby Geisha, Trinie Dalton’s latest work of fiction, is closer to a cool bar with well-traveled, wacky patrons you’d want to eavesdrop on or chat up over cocktails.

Dalton’s stories are tight and terse, ripe with the antics of characters whose lives create global and local antics. The stories include “Pura Vida,” about a nature writer in search of sloths and sex in Costa Rica; “Jackpot (I),” in which newlyweds conduct a group honeymoon in the Greek Isles with friends that share the behavior and monikers of mythical gods and goddesses; and “Jackpot (II),” about a bored husband and wife that murder a local pine tree, the one and only moneymaking destination in their dusty Mexican village.

Dalton handles her narratives with a deft skill and a keen, distinct, confident voice that never eases up, never ceases to surprise, leaving readers happy to experience her intriguing world up close. Just the way we like it.