Death or Ice Cream

Death or Ice Cream is a collection of short stories that interconnect and give us a picture of the surreal town Larkin Mills. They start with a mysterious visitor to Albert Dance and his domineering bedridden mother. The visitor is in the business of buying anecdotes in exchange for a strange vial of purple liquid that he assures Albert will provide the ending to his story.

One story leads into another until by the end we understand the nature of Larkin Mills.  All are slightly surreal and a little bit creepy. Imagine a town where the public art talks to you, where the only hotel doubles as the funeral home, the only wax works in the museum are of local people.

The clue comes in the story that explains the origins of Larkin Mills in Roman Britain when an alien falls to Earth and may or may not have taken over the Roman Empire with the help of a British slave.

The stories are funny and well written, you actually believe in the rather strange characters that populate the pages. You begin to see how the mundane could be hiding a wholly different world beneath. As the tales unfold you begin to realise that what drives the narrative is the age old struggle of good over evil, death or ice cream.

Apart from the fascinating stories it is fun to place some of the names from the obvious Dulwich West or to speculate as to why the alien is called Larkin? I don’t think Milton makes an appearance but he should be mentioned in passing.