The Hollow Boys

* THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE MIDNIGHT KING * 'A masterpiece of small-town horror' - GUARDIAN 'A page-turning, unsettling read' - iPAPER 'Will leave you reeling' - DAILY EXPRESS 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? 'A brilliantly unsettling piece of purest American Gothic' - JAMES OSWALD 'The master of the small-town thriller at the top of his game' - JANICE HALLETT 'An atmospheric thriller. I loved this book' - SARAH PINBOROUGH

Tariq Ashkanani works as a lawyer by day. His debut novel, Welcome to Cooper, won the Bloody Scotland Debut Award 2022, and was shortlisted for both the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Capital Crime Fingerprint Award. His third novel, The Midnight King, won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2025. He also co-hosts the writing podcast Page One. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two sons.