The stunning new literary thriller from the bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial

** AN OBSERVER BEST BOOK OF YEAR **

'Ward's most complex and brilliant book yet' - GUARDIAN
'A darkly moving and heartfelt exploration of obsession' - DAILY EXPRESS

Writers are monsters. We eat everything we see...

In a windswept cottage overlooking the sea, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood companions and the shadowy figure of the Daggerman, who stalked the New England town where they spent their summers. Of a horror that has followed Wilder through the decades. And of Sky, Wilder's one-time friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, The Sound and the Dagger.

This book will be Wilder's revenge on Sky, who betrayed his trust and died without ever telling him why. But as he writes, Wilder begins to find notes written in Sky's signature green ink, and events in his manuscript start to chime eerily with the present. Is Sky haunting him? And who is the dark-haired woman drowning in the cove, whom no one else can see?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder feels his grip on reality slipping. And he begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.

'So beautiful, so dark and so vivid' - JENNIFER SAINT
'A beautifully sinister tale of perception and identity' - JOANNE HARRIS
'Enthralling and heartbreaking' - M.R. CAREY