the message
Stephen James finds communicating with people difficult. When he is accused of a serious crime, he ends up in a police cell in the small valleys’ town of Ynys. He insists that not only is he innocent but that it is he who is the victim, leading to confusion by those in authority.
His efforts to tell his story fall on deaf ears, those who should be helping caught up in their own struggles. He manages to break free of the religious stranglehold his mother has subjected him to and starts to take an interest in birds. He is captivated by his father’s stories about messenger pigeons during the First World War.
Stephen accidentally gets caught up in the affairs of the town’s high-class ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ and the local underworld, leading him to believe that he has solved a violent crime. The fact that he is obsessed with police programmes and wrestling doesn’t help his cause.
He is befriended by Frank Williams, a pigeon fancier, who takes him under his wing and he finds his own unique way of telling his side of the story.
the moonlit mr.spring
Mr. Spring is on his own. Not only is he single but he refuses to be governed by the normal rules of society, rubbing some folk up the wrong way. Paddy's ambition to be the area's first serial killer is thwarted because he's just too kind. He buys Mr. Spring a tricycle, cementing their friendship, and when Paddy loses his job they set up in business together, despite the old man's arthritis.
An accidental death in the small town remains unexplained but the Swansea police leave well alone, having had their fingers burnt by the local arsonist. Nobody takes responsibility for the three-legged dog.
Mysterious graffiti appears on walls and pavements, clearly crafted by someone with literary pretensions but a sick mind. As the gossip increases, Mr Spring is seen as a loose cannon (not the loose vicar - he was in the last story) and the respectable types dub him 'the town nuisance' and plot against him. Paddy cheerfully supports him but Lucy, his girlfriend, loses patience with them both after they throw tins of beans at the TV set.
It is more by luck than judgment that summer visitors from Milwaukee solve the puzzle. Or so they think…