A wry-humoured ghost story for Christmas. On a bitterly cold day in December 2009, Lionel Smallwood, a crusty, atheistical theatre critic, and his wife Frances, find themselves enjoying the Victorian Christmas market in the little-known Dorset town of Grimstone Peverell. Chilled to the marrow, they retire to the town’s minster where they are accosted by a pious and enthusiastic guide, who knows a great deal about some things, yet next to nothing about that which would, to most people, seem obvious; she seems determined not to let them go, but return to London they must – Lionel has a play to review. That, at least, is his intention. A standalone novella in the West Country Tales series, also available alongside four other pieces in Anthology: Wry Out West.