Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch (illustr.)

MISTER PUNCH

"He threw the baby out of the window. Then he battered his wife to death. He killed a policeman who came to arrest him. He caused the hangman to be hanged in his place. He murdered a ghost, and outwitted the Devil himself

"He never died.

"And Mister Punch still lives - to travel up and down the countryside, amusing and delighting both old and young."

In his grandfather's failing seaside arcade, a young boy encounters a mysterious Punch and Judy man with a dark past, and a woman who makes her living playing a mermaid.

As their lives intertwine and their stories unfold, the boy is forced to confront family secrets, stranhge puppets and a nightmarish world of violence and betrayal in this fantastic novel.