Unraveling A Novel

The search for a notorious serial killer takes a therapist on a nightmarish quest to an alternate world to find the sinister secret behind his crimes, in a dark fantasy inspired by Caribbean urban myth, from the award-winning author of The Blue, Beautiful World.

“The natural heiress to Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin.”—Financial Times

Dr. Miranda Ecuovo works as a forensic therapist, helping traumatized witnesses recover their memories so that they can testify about the crimes they observed. Her most famous case resulted in the conviction of the serial killer Walther Gray, a pathologist’s assistant known as the Butcher of the City.

One day Miranda is seized by Chance, one of the spirits known as the Undying, and transported to a fantastical dreamlike world. There she is greeted by an Angel and presented with an unusual mission: Help catch the rogue Undying who was the true mastermind behind the Butcher’s crimes.

Now Miranda and Chance must stop the murderer before he kills again. Together they will race through a surreal otherworld of magical labyrinths and wondrous spirits—but also into the maze of Miranda’s own memories when they retrace her original investigation.

As Miranda draws closer to the truth, she finds herself confronted by even bigger questions than the killer’s identity. How could his victims’ deaths be forgotten so easily? And what can she do to create a world where the vulnerable can be safe and have their lives treated as precious?

Barbadian writer Dr. Karen Lord is the author of Redemption in Indigo, which won the William L. Crawford Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her other works include the science fiction novels The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game, and the crime-fantasy novel Unraveling. She edited the anthology New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean.