"Rushdie turns his ... imagination to life's final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work--India, England, and America--and feature an unforgettable cast of characters. 'In the South' introduces a pair of quarrelsome old men ... and their private tragedy at a moment of national calamity. In 'The Musician of Kahani,' a musical prodigy from the Mumbai neighborhood featured in Midnight's Children uses her magical gifts towreak devastation on the wealthy family she marries into. In 'Late,' the ghost of a Cambridge don enlists the help of a lonely student to enact revenge upon the tormentor of his lifetime. 'Oklahoma' plunges a young writer into a web of deceit and lies as he tries to figure out whether his mentor killed himself or faked his own death. And'The Old Man in the Piazza' is a powerful parable for our times about freedom of speech"--