`Let me tell you of the December day in 1899, sixty years ago, I can never, ever forget . . ." With these words, the seductive opening sentence of Gebler's novel, we are lured into the world of his fascinating story - or, more exactly, stories. There is the story, beautifully detailed in its social realism, of its young narrator, Archie, an impoverished dining-car assistant on the Dublin to Achill Island train. Then, within this framework, come three further stories, each narrated by a different traveller and organised into a competition which Archie finds himself having to judge; as the epigraph has forewarned us, something wicked this way comes. Gebler's artistry lies in his sure-footed moves between real and imagined domains.