This is one of Darren Shan's adult books and it feels very different to the children's work. It revolves around Ed, a horror writer who comes to London to work on a new book, with his own personal ghosts tagging along, quite literally. There he falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a gangster's wife. Ed falls head over heels for her but from the day he meets her, nothing is as it seems.

The first half of the book is well written but quite slow-going, but it's necessary to build up to the second half. I can see that Shan has taken some of his experiences of being a horror writer and given them to his main character and it works well.

The second half is pretty crazy as there is revelation after revelation as nothing is as it seems. Is the whole thing set up by a genius somewhere or is it supernatural and ghostly? We don't find out the answer to that question properly right until the end, though we think we know many times before that. It's complicated yet fairly easy to follow as a desperate man tries to find out the truth. It's a supernatural/crime thriller though you're never really sure which way it leans more until the final reveal.

It's not really what I expected from Shan but it's a fantastic novel and it's great it has so many twists and turns. Brilliant book. 5/5