Crone

A Novel

By: Keith Rosson

A haunting, fearsome story of a father searching for his missing daughter and finding darkness—both human and not—at every turn, from the author of Coffin Moon and Fever House

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. . . .

Critic reviews

“There isn’t a bone in your body that Keith Rosson’s grit-and-gore laden novels can’t break, but Crone shatters your heart. His latest is a cinderblock of grief horror dropped right on the reader’s 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

“Keith 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, New York Times bestselling author of Carry Me to My Grave and Road of Bones