Published By: Viper
Pages: 352
Released On: 14/05/2026
Two children lost. The wrong one found. The town of Aurora is waiting to die. A few miles away a deep seam of coal burns underground, the fire creeping closer ever year. Businesses close. Families leave. Hope dwindles.
And then one day, nine-year-old Danny Yates comes back from the dead. He walks into town half-starved and silent, ten months after he and his best friend Will Keefe were presumed drowned. But when Danny does finally speak, he swears that he’s not Danny anymore. He’s Will. Danny’s mother is convinced that her boy has come back wrong, and that the town itself is now at risk from whatever dark force returned her son.
Chief of Police John Deacon is more interested in how the sinister disappearance of two boys could have been written off as a tragic accident, and who was responsible. What happened to Danny to make him take on his friend’s name, his personality? And does Danny’s return mean there’s a chance that Will is still alive?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Viper for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I read my first Tariq book in 2025 with The Midnight King, which was fantastic, if not altogether palatable, and he instantly became an authors I wanted to read and so was thrilled with this early copy.
I read it in one day and had written no notes whilst reading it for this review because I was so engrossed that I couldn’t tear myself away.
There is a lot going on. I don’t mean that in a negative way at all, but just be warned you need your wits about you.
Whilst I didn’t find it as horrific as parts of The Midnight King were, this still involves children in strange and frightening situations so it still has that element.
I was trying to work out what happened but of course I failed. It’s not a traditional whodunnit as such, but there is a conclusion to draw but I failed miserably at that, which I normally do to be honest.
I wish I’d taken a bit longer to read it so I could stay with it for a bit longer, but at the same time I had to know what happened so I zoomed through it.
I read hundreds of thrillers, they’re probably my most read genre, and whilst I love most of them, there can be the tendency to focus on the “event” and less on the actual storytelling and characters. Whereas this had it all. The actual crime and investigation part was great, but he’s also got that fantastic storytelling ability and use of words to create atmosphere. And the characters…there’s a lot of all ages and backgrounds and professions, and whilst they’re not all likeable, they all have their light and dark parts, some morally grey, they are all believable. They all work well in the main story but they also have their own stories going on. There isn’t a dud amongst them which is impressive in a cast this big.
I really need to check out his earlier books because he’s already a go-to author for thrillers.
Books By Your Bedside 