NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “enthralling” (Los Angeles Times) and “remarkably engrossing” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice) novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school—by legendary author Joyce Carol Oates

“Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written.”—Gillian Flynn

“I found it mesmerizing front to back.”—Michael Connelly

“I can’t remember the last time I read something so (darkly, disconcertingly) addictive.”—Rebecca Makkai

“An extraordinary novel . . . unlike any other mystery I’ve read.”—Joseph Finder

“Tom Ripley, eat your heart out.”—NPR

“A classic psychological suspense.”—People

“A dark, daring plunge into literary suspense . . . Oates dissects the predator-prey dynamic with merciless precision.”—The Seattle Times

AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Vulture, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, AV Club, AARP

Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.