The Amazing Mr. Morality features tenacious men and women whose determination to buck middle-class social convention draws them toward unforeseen challenges. A failed television producer insists upon having a woodchuck relocated from his lawn, only to receive desperate letters in which the woodchuck begs to return. An overconfident ne'er-do-well obtains a lucrative lecture invitation intended for a renowned ornithologist and decides to deliver the speech himself. An innocuous dispute over whether to rename a local street opens up racial fault lines that prove deadly.
The collection concludes with the title novella in which two unscrupulous ethicists, writing rival newspaper columns, seek to unseat each other by addressing questions such as: If you're going to commit a murder, is it worse to kill when the victim is sleeping or awake?
"Intelligent, humanistic, and witty stories that bite."
--Kirkus (starred review)
"In this collection of disturbing, addictive, provocative stories, the situations bristle with the reach of unrepentant longing and unexpected persistence. Appel's stories never fail to impress; they never fail, period."
--Karen Heuler, author of The Inner City and In Search of Lost Time