Mark Haddon, author of the international bestselling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother, returns with a collection of unsparing short stories. In the prize-winning story "The Gun," a man's life is marked by a single afternoon and a rusty.45; in "The Island," a mythical princess is abandoned on an island in the midst of war; in "The Boys Who Left Home to...