National Bestseller

For centuries, a mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry ’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.

“One of the great literary achievements of our young century.”--The Guardian

It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a sanctuary. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, who hunts her prey through the ages, dooming those she captures to timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy. But then Karel disappears…

Spanning continents and centuries, Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent is a masterpiece of suspense as well as a profound investigation of the eternal nature of love and compassion.