A billionaire takes an iron rod through the skull and gets back up. Johnny Compton hands the mystery of his immortality to a private investigator with a secret of her own.
Readical Key Points
Supernatural horror with a hard-boiled detective at its center and Texas history in its background; reviewed in Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.
From the author of The Spite House, a Bram Stoker Award nominee.
Hardcover from G.P. Putnam's Sons, published February 10, 2026; 368 pages.
Content note: graphic violence and gore.
Private investigator Shyla Sinclair accepts an invitation to the mansion of Saxton Braith, an eccentric billionaire, and watches his assistant kill him. Then Braith comes back. He cannot die, cannot say why, and remembers little of his own past, so he offers Shyla millions to dig it up. She is curious, but also cornered: Braith already knows the secret she has kept.
This Putnam hardcover suits horror readers who like a detective to follow into the dark, and crime readers ready for a case that ordinary evidence cannot close. Every clue Shyla turns up about Braith's past points a little closer to her own.
About the Author
Johnny Compton wrote The Spite House, a Bram Stoker Award nominee, and Devils Kill Devils. His short fiction has appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons and The No Sleep Podcast.
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