The debut novel of John Langan, author of The Fisherman, is the uncanny story of Veronica, widow of the missing professor Roger Croydon. A tale rooted in Victorian England, unfolding across the banks of the Hudson River and the battlefields of Afghanistan.
For the past several years, Veronica has found herself at the center of scandal. It all began with her marriage: Roger Croydon, a professor of English literature and a scholar of Charles Dickens, left his family for her and brought her to live in the house where he had spent years with his former wife and their only son.
And now, for reasons unknown, Roger has disappeared. No one knows where he is — or even whether he is alive — and suspicion has increasingly fallen on Veronica.
What happens to a marriage housed within walls filled with memories, guilt and desire, tragedies and loss?
A richly layered story in which the post-traumatic sense of grief and survivor’s guilt experienced in the aftermath of September 11 elevates it far beyond a conventional supernatural tale of horror and ghosts.
With remarkable skill and precision, John Langan masterfully handles a dense web of details, references, and interwoven threads, crafting an intelligent novel that raises unsettling questions while keeping the reader enthralled to the very last page.
