Collection of 13 short stories about sexuality, death, obsession and religion. The title story “Jerusalem Ablaze” tells of an encounter between a priest and a dominatrix in Jerusalem’s Old City; in “After the Storm”, a fragile young woman discovers a body washed up on the windswept Oregon coast after a storm; and in “Torture by Roses”, a young protégé in post--war Japan watches his master’s corpse burn, with bitter thoughts blazing in his mind. Each story contains characters who are flawed individuals trying their best to make sense of their lives. Gripping and intriguing, the stories are sometimes bleak, occasionally violent, and often possessed of a dark humour.
