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NAMED ONE OF CRIMEREADS' MOST ANTICIPATED CRIME NOVELS OF 2022

It lurks in the shadows. It lives in your worst nightmares. It feeds on your deepest fears. And it’s coming to get you.

When she loses her parents in a car accident in Boston, Diya Mathur’s world collapses around her. As far as she knows, she’s a young woman alone in the world now, her parents having been her only living relatives. Until a mysterious letter arrives from India, claiming to be from her extended family that she’d never heard of. Suddenly, Diya has a chance at being part of a family again. She decides to take time out of school and go to India to meet her newfound family. But soon after Diya arrives there is a spate of what appear to be animal attacks around her and her family. 

As bodies and tragedies pile up around her, Diya finds out more about the secrets her family is hiding, including the curse of the Chakwa—a shapeshifting trickster with the feet of a large beast—which legend has it, has been responsible for tragedies in her family for centuries. Diya’s no longer sure that her parents’ car crash was an accident. Will the monster that ruined her parents’ life now destroy her happiness? Or will she manage to defeat it at its own game? With the help of her newly discovered friends and family, Diya must fight not just the monster from her nightmares, but also make sense of a fast-unravelling web of lies that makes up her life.

A gripping action story with a vein of star-crossed romance

In this prequel to 2022's THE RED CANOE, Buck, aka Michael Fineday, aka Red Deer is on his way to track down his wayward brother in the Twin Cities, when he's trapped in a snowstorm and rescued by Sally, a girl who is fighting her own demons. Though intrigued by Sally, most of Buck's time is spent trying to unravel his family’s involvement with an elaborate racket which has recently gotten his cousin Ruben and his half-brother Bear killed.

Eli, Buck’s surviving brother, is up to his neck in the racket that involves insurance fraud and stolen vehicles, and unwilling to tell Buck the truth. The racketeer’s kingpin thinks Eli has something they want—which is both his death warrant and his salvation. The problem is, Eli doesn’t know exactly what the something is or how to find it; his only clue is a phrase in Anishinaabe language Ruben scrawled on the wall of his room before he was killed, and it's up to Buck to track it down.

Meanwhile, Sally and Buck grow closer through the shared wounds of their difficult pasts; and Buck teaches her some Ashinaabe language and cultural practices. Strangely, all roads—both Sally's and Buck's—lead to the Witch Tree, an important spiritual reservoir in Native American religion, and where he is forced to face the many facets of his own identity and find a way for them both to heal.

Their mission is aided and complicated by an enigmatic assassin with a discomforting fascination for Lily. When the hunt for the niece leads to another missing relative, the trio of dangerous heroes—ninja, triad, and assassin—are pitted against an even greater foe. Meanwhile, Chang’s family must be moved from the shikumen house in Old Shanghai before the government tears it down. This would be simpler if not for the feud between brothers and the old resentments and intrigues entwined with the stunning history of the city itself.