A cabbie with a booze problem pities a murderer and helps him flee into the desert. A homeless woman teaches a businessman how to dance. A bank robber on the run does the only compassionate thing he's ever done in his life when he encounters a band of wild horses. A man hunts and kills his romantic rival, then presents the love of his life with a grisly token of his affection.

The stories in Paul Luikart's Animal Heart address lives in transition, focusing on raggedy characters in need of redemption--whether they realize it or not.