George is a reluctant resident of Bayview Care Home. Increasingly haunted by memories and hounded by ghosts, he is determined to return to his wife Judy, which won't happen if the motley crew of Bayview have anything to do with it: foul-mouthed Clarissa, television-obsessed Perry, depressed June (who may or may not be Satan), winking poet Bernard and geriatric Elvis impersonator Upton Silver are set to frustrate his efforts to leave. George has little choice but to bide his time by vandalizing cars and enticing residents to sneeze their teeth out. Freedom, when it comes, brings its problems in the form of a busker with a grudge and a psychotic clown who pursues him as he heads for the house in which he and Judy used to live. Alternately chilling, moving and comic, Jonathan Carter's novel grips the reader in a vice as tight as Mr. Punch's embrace.