St John Fox is a writer, alternately inspired and frustrated by Mary Fox, another writer who may or may not be a figment of his imagination. Mary Fox doesn't like what Mr Fox has been writing about- too many murders of innocent women- and so challenges him to a contest of sorts, to see which of them can craft a better alternate story of their lives and relationship. Whether or not they can ever achieve a happy ending is an open question- especially to Daphne, Mr Fox's wife. Sometimes present, sometimes fatally absent, she plays the third lead in the Fox's interweaving narratives.