Crota

An ancient monster awakens in this "convincing and fascinating" classic horror thriller, a winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle).

It starts with what appears to be a grisly car accident on Cemetery Road. Sheriff Skip Harding has never seen anything like it: two mutilated victims, one gutted and hanging upside down from a tree. All he knows for sure is that this is no hit and run . . .

Jay Little Hawk—Cherokee shaman and game warden—is drawn into one of the county's better-known caves by a strange odor. A wall has collapsed, maybe from the recent earthquake—but Little Hawk has no time to speculate. His body is soon crawling with a feeling of numbing terror, and his mind is touched by an unwanted presence. He has no choice but to flee, for something evil and foul is coming from the very bowels of the earth . . .

In a subterranean world, a creature from the dawn of time—long forgotten by humanity—has been roused from its sleep. And soon the residents of Hobbs County, Missouri, will know true fear as the beast of darkness follows its bloodlust into the light.

"Unputdownable . . . excitement on every page." —Andre Norton, New York Times–bestselling author

"The suspense of a Clive Barker or Dean Koontz." —Kirkus Reviews