A Rush of Blood

Set in London (“with its rain and its noise and the feeling that every breath has been through a million other lungs before it reaches your own”), this vivid and often witty gothic thriller from Mark (The Mausoleum) comes complete with all the trimmings: madness, death, a gloomy house that holds a terrifying secret, and echoes of a bloody past. Ten-year-old Hilda is the daughter of Molly, the manager of the Jolly Bonnet, “Whitechapel’s premier Victorian gin bar.” Decorated with antique medical equipment, the pub is “a must-see destination for anybody with an interest in the murky world of morbid anatomy.” When a schoolmate goes missing, Hilda seeks help in finding her from Molly and Lottie, “a well-respected pathologist and an excellent curator of the necro-museum she personally established,” who has her own YouTube channel. Lottie and her posse of followers soon discover that other young girls have gone missing. The blood-drenched finale and disturbingly creepy epilogue will long remain in the mind of the reader. Those with a taste for the macabre will be well satisfied. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.). (Jan.)