T. Kingfisher meets Cassandra Khaw in this โfast-pacedโ haunted house story full of โold-school horrorโ and โbrimming with edgy tension and evilโ (Library Journal)!
When the terrifying plot of a horror novel comes to life, its author discovers thereโs a fine line between humanity and monstrosity . . .
Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of Crooked Tree. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the bookโs release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.
Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookmanโs latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the bookโand the killerโbefore the story reaches its chilling climax.
As the series of โScarecrow crimesโ continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He canโt remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfatherโs forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.
As Ben digs deep into Blackwoodโs history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long agoโand it wonโt stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.