Joe Hill has been hailed as "a major player in 21st-century
fantastic fiction" (Washington Post); "a new master in the
field of suspense" (James Rollins); "one of the most confident and
assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent
years (Publishers Weekly); a writer who "builds character
invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner"
(New York Times).
This gifted and brilliantly imaginative author catapulted to
bestsellerdom with the chilling Heart-Shaped Box and
cemented his reputation with the prizewinning volume of short
fiction 20th Century Ghosts. At
last, the New York Times bestselling author returns with a
relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on
wheels. . . .
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible
things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a
raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his
temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product
of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in
a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved,
Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable
circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural
thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns,
which were all too real.
Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born
into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger
brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth,
and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more?he
had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring,
and unlikely midsummer magic.
But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the
crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In
the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and
always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled
strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do,
nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has
abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .
Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his
terrible new look?a macabre talent he intends to use to find the
monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and
praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little
revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . .
