Crone - by Keith Rosson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Eli Lamp is a broken man. An ex-detective, ex-addict, and long-grieving father whose daughter, Hannah, disappeared a decade before, Eli decimated his old life investigating her abduction and is now indebted to the Crooked Wheel, a local drug gang, as an enforcer. He lives in a rundown trailer at the edge of the woods, where he keeps Hannah's room in pristine condition and tries to make it through one day at a time.

But when the son of the Crooked Wheel's boss is found viciously murdered in a crime scene that doesn't seem to add up, Eli receives a new order: Find out who the killer is and your debt to the Crooked Wheel is clear forever. You're free. This pursuit brings him into the orbit of Avery Bryant, Hannah's best friend and the last person to see her before she went missing. Soon, Eli and Avery are entwined in a hunt for answers that spans decades, stretches the realm of possibility, and brings churning to the surface a conspiracy linking not only these current tragedies but the buried sorrows of Eli's past.

And though none of them dare say the word witch, at least not out loud, something lurks in the woods, bent-backed and black-eyed, clawed and vengeful, looming ever closer. . . .

Review Quotes

"There isnʼt a bone in your body that Keith Rossonʼs grit-and-gore-laden novels canʼt break, but Crone shatters your heart. His latest is a cinderblock of grief horror dropped right on the readerʼs chest. The brutal poetry of his prose inspires awe, and his body of work just keeps getting jacked. Let there be no doubt: Keith Rosson is the reigning champ of horror noir, fists down."--Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters and Devil Inside

"Rosson is fast becoming one of my favorite horror writers. Crone is a brilliant, heartbreaking melding of folk horror, crime novel, and crippling grief. The sorrow, the characters, the monstrosity, the folk magic . . . I want more, immediately."--Christopher Golden, author of Carry Me to My Grave and Road of Bones

"Crone is horror with a crime novel's pulse. In sharp prose that never flinches, Keith Rosson takes on corruption, complicity, a girl who vanished, and a terrible truth lingering in the woods. Extraordinary!"--Cynthia Pelayo, author of Children of Chicago

"Rosson has written the rare witch story that earns both its darkness and its mercy."--Ginger Nuts of Horror

"Rosson knows how to show you a good time while having a very, very bad time."--FanFi Addict

"Outstanding . . . a feast for the senses. . . . Every rip of skin, crack of bone, and jagged blade is lovingly and deliciously written."--Library Journal, starred review

"A genuinely masterful horror novel, a story about love and hate and all of their shades, with severed hearts and heads and talking radios and bile vomiting, winged creatures . . . If you only read one novel this year, let it be this one; it's a rarity that a novel feels so achingly tender and so brutal at the same time."--Comics Beat

"Brimming with brutal atmosphere and pitch-black dread, Crone is an absolute knockout of a genre hybrid. Rosson anchors skin-crawling terror in authentic human tragedy to deliver one of the most compelling horror novels of the year."--CinemaChords

"Gory and sophisticated . . . [Rosson] combines with emotionally nuanced characterization and some genuine scares to yield another superior example of literary horror."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"If you're looking for a nastily readable book about a bunch of dudes killing each other, Rosson has you covered. Crone is propulsive, and speeds forward like the motorcycles that dot its pages. It's a ride. But it's also got a point of view. Rosson seems to know what he's doing in creating a book about how awful men can be to each other, to their families, and to themselves."--Portland Mercury

"Full of menace and heartbreak, Crone is a lyrical meditation on loss and resilience, a story where the past refuses to stay buried and the price of truth is nothing less than a transformation."--Lancashire Post

About the Author