Central to Harriet Richards? character-driven stories in "The Pious Robber" are girls and women who have captured the revelations and disclosures that life's complications have offered to them. Some are bold and blunt women who know loneliness and loss and don't suffer fools; others are girls brimming with vim and wit who see life changes clearly but cannot totally grasp their meanings. The life-long bonds that girls form in friendship shape memory and tilt the emotions of retrospection even after death. How Richards? characters not only experience but measure such relationships is part of the magical transformation of their lives.