The Hollow City

An amnesiac paranoid schizophrenic holds the key to a serial killer’s motivation in Wells’s provocative new thriller. Michael Shipman is the ultimate unreliable narrator, tortured by his senses and afflicted with delusions about being pursued by Faceless Men. Now the authorities want to know whether Michael’s Faceless Men are involved with the Red Line Killer, whose de-faced victims were associated with the Children of the Earth, a cult based in the former home of notorious murderer Milos Cerny—the man who killed Michael’s mother. When the Faceless Men start stalking Michael in the psychiatric hospital, he escapes to uncover the truth behind the killer, the cult, and his own shadowy childhood memories of a hollow city of empty houses. Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer) has created an intense, uncanny protagonist who’s trapped in an eerie world where denying the insane and otherworldly truth means death. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger Inc. (July)