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"Rat Under Glass" is a short story that straddles the dark crime and extreme horror genres. It is primarily about Neo, a rat catcher who crosses the mob after his partner is killed by The Lobotomizer. Neo bungles the mob's bid for another sanitation contract by electrifying the runoff grids of New York. Lots of people fry, and the mob sees fit to dispense extreme punishment. Most of the story is about how Neo deals with that punishment, making use of his perseverance, tenacity, and off-the-wall thinking.

Nella Braddy (1894-1973), a pioneer among female editors, compiled this seven-story collection and published Masterpieces of Adventure: Tales of the Sea and Sky in 1921. It features seven authors: Frank Norris, W. Clark Russell, Major General E.D. Swinton, Donn Byrne, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Guy de Maupassant, and Edgar Allan Poe. A century since publication, we can perhaps have a new appreciation for tales of the sea (on ships both wrecked and abandoned, in lighthouses and with ferocious currents) and the sky (with warfare in dirigibles and using balloons).

Reaching for a curiously shaped stone in a southern California riverbed, Kurt, a motherless 13-year-old out on a father-son bonding camp trip, feels a pulsing tremor of energy. Confused, he shares this oddly colored rock with his two friends, both who touch it briefly and throw it away in cries of pain. Unsure what to do, the three boys agree to keep this strange phenomenon a secret.