205 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,2000
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"...some remote place, where everyone looked on life with joy, peace and compassion, and I would see if I could make the people there break a few of the Ten Commandments."It's rocky past had experienced banditry and surprising redemption, and its modern-day decline looks evident. To avert that fate, the village leaders seriously consider the stranger's wager, which Miss Chantal Prym the barmaid who would prefer city life, proposes one evening. Viscos can have the ten buried, heavy gold bars if they murder an innocent victim to save the town. The stranger's rationale is that were one inhabitant to nix the victim's murder would show him that some human beings are essentially good; were everyone involved to do the murder, the stranger would know that his kidnapped family's murderers lacked any spark of goodness and that human nature is evil. The nature of persuasion, of authority, of obedience, of good and evil, of temptation and self-control are motifs. Liked very much the shining and dimness of the stranger's and Chantal's visible angels and devils. The old woman Berta saw the stranger and Devil enter town while Chantal's soul also has an angel and devil who wax or wane.
