A FEW SHORT NOTES ON TROPICAL BUTTERFLIES (2003)

Murray has a medical background, an Iowa Writers' Workshop degree, and, judging from his debut story collection, one hell of an orderly sock drawer. Just about all of his yarns follow scientists and other people of habit and regimen -- e.g., a cholera expert, a carpenter, a Red Cross surgeon -- who are thrust into tumult, usually in exotic locales. If there is perhaps too much harping on the same themes in much the same style, Murray makes up for it with his writing, which displays a braininess that can't be faked and a flair that won't be denied.