NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A man tasked with locating a missing person becomes entangled in a small English town’s dark underbelly in this “superb thriller” (San Francisco Chronicle) from the author of Gorky Park.

“Thoroughly involving . . . Rose is a work of Dickensian complexity and plot twists, a literate mystery that’s as much concerned with the workings of the human heart as it is with whodunit and why.”—Houston Chronicle

For explorer and adventurer Jonathan Blair, nothing could be more repulsive than trekking to the dreary coal town of Wigan, England. But he has no choice. To earn passage back to his beloved Africa, Blair must accept a commission: discover what happened to the missing Reverend, John Maypole.

Yet once in Wigan, Blair finds the locals as impenetrable as the coal-choked sky. Maypole’s fiancée seems unconcerned that he has vanished, and the last person to see the Reverend is a mysteriously elusive pit girl named Rose. As Blair searches for answers, he plunges into a dangerous web of sweltering intrigue and chilling souls. And soon a startling story emerges, revealing a truth more shocking than Blair ever could have imagined. . . .