Humor, suspense, crime, and mischief abound in this highly imaginative collection of nine short stories and two novellas. As in his first book, Grandpa Gets a Tattoo and Other Stories (2025), Michael Massee's page-turning stories are rich with unexpected turns, red herrings, and surprise endings. A mysterious visual disturbance leads to a missing person, then to a shocking revelation. One sewing machine changes three lives-first for an abandoned Mormon wife, then for a talented teenage boy, and finally for a girl in an oppressive Indian boarding school. Difficult questions are asked: How do we relate to a neighbor with an intractable mental illness? Is "mercy killing" ever justified? What if we could choose what happens when we die? In "Affliction," a crusty, old-time newspaperman meets a warehouse clerk beset by messages from beyond, a midlife crisis, and a very overbearing mother; they team up to solve two mysteries-and along the way reinvigorate their own lives. This collection also serves up a sitcom actor with delusions of grandeur, a teenage Christmas prank gone wrong, a neighborhood murder mystery, crime-fighting birds-and a Great American Novel you can finish in only eight minutes! Massee's stories are by turns poignant and witty, thoughtful and irreverent, displaying his flair as a natural storyteller. Born in Corvallis, Oregon, Michael Massee grew up on the West Coast. After majoring in Theatre Arts at Portland State University, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a scenic painter, a stage manager and a "sometime" actor, as well as a set and costume designer. He worked off-Broadway and on Broadway, and eventually went back to school to get his MFA in theatre at Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts.From 1989 to 2003, he headed the Scenic Design Program at Fordham University at Lincoln Center. Upon retiring, he began devoting himself to developing his skill as a painter. Among the venues where his work has been exhibited are the Montclair (N.J.) Museum of Art, Gallery 125 in Trenton, the Cosmopolitan Club in Philadelphia, and the Cherry Hill (N.J.) Library Gallery.He now lives in the pines of Waterford Works, New Jersey, with his wife Carol Rosenfeld, an actress/teacher extraordinaire, with whom he proudly shares the responsibility for a wonderful son and three outstanding grandchildren.The author can be reached by email at masseeman05@gmail.com.