From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, comes a psychologically complex thriller examining the fine line between genius and madness.
Andrew J. Rush is a successful mystery writer with twenty-eight novels to his name. He has a loving wife, three grown children, and is well-known in his small New Jersey town for his charitable work.
But Andrew J. Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym Jack of Spades, he has penned another string of novels – dark tales of murder, lust and madness.
When a court order arrives accusing him of plagarism, Rush fears his secret may be exposed. And unbidden, in the back of his mind, the Jack of Spades starts plotting his survival.
Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates:
'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian
'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express
'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review
'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times
'Oates is simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I'm concerned' Gillian Flynn.
'A collection that displays Oates's ability to inhabit distinctive voices to chilling effect' Observer.
'A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around' New York Times.
'Both haunting and sublime' Literary Review.
'An unsettling read worth every resulting jump in the night... [Oates is a] literary goddess' Daily Mail.
'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday' Sunday Express.
'Oates' world is full of iniquities, and grisly ways to rectify them. But it's a world sharp with reality, for all its ghouls and sorrows' Financial Times
