John Connolly is the author of the Charlie Parker series of mystery novels, the supernatural collection Nocturnes, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnollyBooks.com, or follow him on Twitter @JConnollyBooks.

Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He took action to save lives, never imagining how that might put his own at risk. Unknown forces humiliated him and stripped him of everything, sending him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He believes it’s only a matter of time before these forces kill him—but before he dies, he wants answers. Burnel turns to Charlie Parker: who are the people who ruined his life? What happened to the young woman he saved? And what is the secret concealed in a small town in West Virginia, where an ancient power rests?

Charlie Parker, reborn from death, is finding new ways to do battle with old evil. He and his longtime allies, Louis and Angel, descend on a strange, isolated community called The Cut, whose leaders serve only the Dead King.

It is deep winter. The darkness is unending.

The private detective named Jaycob Eklund has vanished, and Charlie Parker is dispatched to track him down. Parker’s employer, Edgar Ross, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has his own reasons for wanting Eklund found.

Eklund is no ordinary investigator. He is obsessively tracking a series of homicides and disappearances, each linked to reports of hauntings. Now Parker will be drawn into Eklund’s world, a realm in which the monstrous Mother rules a crumbling criminal empire, in which men strike bargains with angels, and in which the innocent and guilty alike are pawns in a game of ghosts . . .