Character creation, vivid scene-setting, humour and authentic dialogue are some of the strengths of this excellent short story collection. The title story features two women characters, one a destructive drunk, the other the terrified student bargirl who is the narrator. Breaking Point also features two women in a shocking story reminiscent of Southern Gothic. Strong, eccentric female characters feature in many of the stories, such as the arborist who accidentally kills her straying son-in-law while trying to teach him a lesson (Nibbling at the Bloodstains), or the surgeon, an expert in gunshot wounds, who is kidnapped on a Caribbean island holiday to operate on a gang leader, while the police interrogate her husband, a detective-story writer, for her murder (Victim of Circumstance). Of the many moving stories, none is more so than What Liza Saw with its brave wife who gives birth to a disabled baby, her brutal abusive husband, the wife's good friend and the caring, humane doctor.
