Milty is an old man leaving out his life after seventy years and slowly realising that his memory is slipping. The one thing that he keeps trying to remember is an old Trinket box, filled with a few odds and ends that he recently found. Each one should trigger something, and event or location he can remember, but cannot. Slowly he begins to lose his mind and recollections and on his good days he can know and understand that it is happening. His carer Jason comes each day to help him out, but Milty wants to keep it private. The one day, he appears to receive a message from his dead wife, who passed away five years ago, leading him to head out to try and understand what is happening to him.

At first glance, this is a very well thought out, and to be honest quite harrowing tale, of someone apparently suffering the creeping effects of Alzheimer’s. The forgetfulness, the worry, the realisation all well described and covers the first half of the book. If it had only been that first half this would be a powerful short tale. But the second half starts to introduce a supernatural element to it, and while ghost stories can be powerful and terrifying, they are just that stories. Compared to the ongoing and realistic horror of one poor man slowly losing his mind, and at the same time knowing it, it pales by comparison.

The writing is excellent, conveying the horror of the situation, and the characters, thought briefly introduced, are conveyed well, each one playing a little extra role in the life of the elderly gentleman.