When the characters assemble in Bagtown to take part in the opening ceremony of the novel, it is then we discover our heroin Alberteen Falcone is suspiciously absent and so the detective thriller that is The Swaying Mantlepiece begins. Set in the tiny old port of Bagtown and the mysterious Sleepwalk City beneath the great volcano Mount Dude we find a civilisation ruled only by the playful imagination and the spirit of adventure of its own inhabitants.