The Devil in Silver

Brought to you by Penguin.

New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one.

When an altercation with the police leads to Pepper being mistakenly admitted to a mental institution in Queens, NYC, he doesn’t expect to stay there long. It will be a matter of days, he believes, until the misunderstanding is ironed out and he is released.

But as those days stretch into weeks, blurring into a cycle of bad food, endless hallways, and an ever-increasing mixture of sedatives, Pepper realises that the system isn’t just broken – it’s forgotten him. He must fight through the chemical haze to hold on to his sanity, but he has worse problems. There are rumours that a devil stalks the wards after dark – a monstrous figure with the body of an old man and the head of a bison. As more patients begin vanishing, and the overworked staff cover up their disappearances, Pepper must unite the other inmates and kill the monster that’s hunting them. But what can destroy the devil?

The Devil in Silver is a terrifying and empathetic exploration of the horrors of institutional neglect, and the courage it takes to slay our demons – both real and imagined.

© Victor LaValle 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026