The first entry, \u201cA Gringo Died Today,\u201d kicks things off in a village in Guatemala. As the title suggests, the dead body of a foreigner is discovered on a beach; the story of how that dead body came to be there is one that lands a local in some serious trouble. In \u201cThe Eagle of the Desert,\u201d an Englishman named Archie labors at an unpleasant yoga retreat in a Mexican desert run by a disagreeable American who calls himself Eagle. (Archie was present when the events of \u201cA Gringo Died Today\u201d occurred; he felt he needed to \u201cget over something awful that happened on the beaches of Guatemala.\u201d) \u201cTeatime at the Cricket\u201d takes the reader to England, where trouble ensues at a usually low-key Sunday cricket match. In \u201cWhose Story?,\u201d someone from that cricket match has a story to tell of an adventure in Greece\u2014but the storyteller isn\u2019t entirely truthful about his own actions. In \u201cTrue Colours,\u201d a businessman named Zach with an eye on becoming the new mayor of Oakland, California, is quite pleased with a new flag he is flying outside his home. Throughout the collection, the stories introduce knowable, nuanced characters. They come to life on the page, from Eagle, with his \u201clong greying hair tied into a bun,\u201d to Zach, who feels his flags say \u201cmore about him than words ever could.\u201d In \u201cTeatime,\u201d Davies excels not only at describing the people involved but also at providing details about the sport at the heart of the story. (\u201cEveryone says cricket is so slow but when you\u2019re scoring it\u2019s the fastest thing in the world.\u201d) Occasionally, the outcomes prove predictable; for instance, it is clear from the get-go that the protagonist of \u201cWhose Story?\u201d will probably not amount to much of a hero. Nevertheless, the ways in which the stories intertwine add an additional level of intrigue to an already compelling cast of characters.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first entry, \u201cA Gringo Died Today,\u201d kicks things off in a village in Guatemala. As the title suggests, the dead body of a foreigner is discovered on a beach; the story of how that dead body came to be there is one that lands a local in some serious trouble. In \u201cThe Eagle of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}