Michael Marshall Smith has written a tale that from page one hurtles us only forward in this unsettling, suspenseful, and wildly imaginative novel

Call him Stark. If you have to. If you're lucky, you won't call him at all. Because if you do, it means you've got trouble. Big trouble. And the problem is that before Stark is done fixing something, a whole lot of other things usually get broken. Like laws and lives-and anyone who gets in the way.

It's that attitude that's earned him his latest assignment: finding a missing VIP named Fell Alkland. The authorities believe Alkland has been kidnapped. Stark doesn't. He hasn't stayed alive this long without learning the basics of survival in a world hurtling straight to hell: Things are always more complicated than they seem. And when a job seems too easy, that's when something really ugly is about to happen.

For Fell Alkland is about to become Stark's worst nightmare, a nightmare where anything can happen at any time-where friends can become enemies in a heartbeat and your most secret fear a soul-screaming reality. And the worst of it is that for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep.

"Shocking, moving, and surreal . . . It offers us a journey from which we return both shaken and exhilarated. . . . Extraordinary."-Clive Barker