A dark and haunting thriller about lost children in a dying rust-belt town for readers of Chris Whitaker and S.A. Cosby

* THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE MIDNIGHT KING * 'A brilliantly unsettling piece of purest American Gothic' - JAMES OSWALD 'The master of the small-town thriller at the top of his game' - JANICE HALLETT 'An atmospheric thriller. I loved this book' - SARAH PINBOROUGH Two children lost. The wrong one found. The town of Aurora is waiting to die. A few miles away a deep seam of coal burns underground, the fire creeping closer ever year. Businesses close. Families leave. Hope dwindles. And then one day, nine-year-old Danny Yates comes back from the dead. He walks into town half-starved and silent, ten months after he and his best friend Will Keefe were presumed drowned. But when Danny does finally speak, he swears that he's not Danny anymore. He's Will. Danny's mother is convinced that her boy has come back wrong, and that the town itself is now at risk from whatever dark force returned her son. Chief of Police John Deacon is more interested in how the sinister disappearance of two boys could have been written off as a tragic accident, and who was responsible. What happened to Danny to make him take on his friend's name, his personality? And does Danny's return mean there's a chance that Will is still alive?

"A page-turning, unsettling read" - i Paper

"[A] well-etched account of a dying American town, with emptiness the forcing place to cruelty... Powerful" - Critic

"Ashkanani's novel sees him painting a world that feels lived-in, cynical and drenched in shadow and mystery. It also has a page-turning narrative that's lean and mean and keeps you guessing right to the end" - Crack

"There's a real grittiness to this author's writing and storylines, reminiscent of the thrillers I read back in the 1990s" - Prima