Where the Dead Wait A Novel

“Haunting...Ominous.” —The New York Times Book Review

A “wonderfully chilling” (Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author) polar gothic about a Victorian explorer in search of his lost shipmate–and redemption–from the Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of All the White Spaces.

William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace.

Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens­—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s­ done.

Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism.

Aboard ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition, as well as Stevens’s wife, a spirit-medium whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Following a trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, their search becomes more and more unnerving. The restless dead are never far behind in this “breathtaking achievement” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Ally Wilkes, the acclaimed author of All the White Spaces, grew up in a succession of isolated—possibly haunted—country houses and boarding schools. After studying law at Oxford, she went on to spend eleven years as a criminal barrister. Ally now lives in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about Polar exploration. You can follow Ally on Twitter @UnheimlichManvr.