"When cancer claims the life of both her parents, young Allie moves from Kansas to Lithuania to live with her grandfather. Adrift in a grief she has no real way to comprehend, Allie takes to fishing the very river from whose depths her mother once pulled sturgeon -- a fish she is told disappeared from those waters long ago." -- container.

Returning from a design and garden show in Milan, the Devil looks at Hell in disgust. The slimy rocks, the fog--all of it is passé now that environmentalists enjoy that sort of thing. Plus an expansion is needed to accomodate the amount of American businessmen on their way down. So the Devil starts redesigning Hell--complete with the St. Louis arch over the Entrance Gate and new art from the Louvre and various cathedrals.