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These twelve stories are rooted in foreign places, cemeteries, violence, and strong women. The worlds the characters construct are unforgiving. Their paths cross in tangled and sometimes deadly ways. In the title novella, three women use wit, seduction, and weapons to master the men they meet. The ribald reverend in "The Second Coming" meets his match in nineteen-year-old Charity. In "Super Secrets," two women are neighbors and lovers, until one is betrayed and exacts revenge. On a darker note, a crazed horse and a storm at sea shatter a fragile love in "Slashing at the Nets." Then, in "Storm Painter," an artist moves in with a writer, but their past destroys his third novel. Place is important. No one other than an Italian detective would find a clue in a singular tortellini. The New York sniper could only be trained by the Israeli Defense Force.3 Women, 4 Towns, 5 Bodies is a short story collection spanning centuries, where nothing is as it seems and twists are as abundant as they are deadly.