The Drinking of Spirits

Belize’s tropics, Ohio’s lazy 50’s suburbs, Florida’s down-and-out Ybor City, Madrid’s narrow streets and late tapa bar nights-what Tom Abrams does with all these locales is almost as luxurious as what he does with the characters inhabiting them. Readers familiar with A Bad Piece of Luck will once more appreciate the down-and-dirty realism Abrams employs, but will find an added element . . . kismet? Well, that implies love, and while dime store romance is as absent as the Dow Jones Index, there is love in these stories, a love of life and love of humanity-no matter how mired it may at times become. So yes, kismet.