From New York Times bestselling author and Mountain Goats singer/songwriter John Darnielle, an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, artistic obsession, and the dangers of storytelling.

Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That's what his mother always told him.

Chandler is a true crime writer, with one grisly success - and movie adaptation - to his name, along with a series of subsequent lesser efforts that have paid the bills but not much more. But now he is being offered the chance for his big break: to move into the house - which locals call 'The Devil House' - in which a briefly notorious pair of murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected 1980s teens. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected - his own work and what it means, the very core of what he does and who he is.

'Like his best songs, John Darnielle's startling and tender new novel radiates out in all directions from the bomb blast of teenagehood. It is a novel about the things we want to believe: about conspiracies and rumours and states of wonder, about monsters of convenience and dreams of escape. It turns to face the horror with disarming kindness, and it implicates us all.'