Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, youll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you wont want to leave. Later, youll find that you cant. Every nine years, the houses residentsan odd brother and sisterextend a unique invitation to someone whos different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, its already too late. . . .

Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house storyas only David Mitchell could imagine it.

Praise for

A fiendish delight . . . Mitchell is something of a magician.

Entertainingly eerie . . . We turn to [Mitchell] for brain-tickling puzzle palaces, for character studies and for language.

A ripping yarn . . . Like Shirley Jacksons Hill House or the Overlook Hotel from Stephen Kings [Slade House] is a thin sliver of hell designed to entrap the unwary. . . . As the Mitchellverse grows ever more expansive and connected, this short but powerful novel hints at still more marvels to come.

Like Stephen King in a fever . . . manically ingenious.(U.K.)

Ahaunted house story that savors of Dickens, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and H. P. Lovecraft, but possesses more psychic voltage than any of them.

Tightly crafted and suspenseful yet warmly human . . .the ultimate spooky nursery tale for adults.

Diabolically entertaining . . . dark, thrilling, and fun . . .a thoroughly entertaining ride full of mind games, unexpected twists, and even a few laughs.

Plants died, milk curdled, and my children went slightly feral as I succumbed to the creepy magic of David Mitchells. Its a wildly inventive, chilling, andfor all its otherworldlinesswonderfully human haunted house story. I plan to return to its clutches quite often.Gillian Flynn, #1bestselling author ofand

I gulped down this novel in a single evening. Painstakingly imagined and crackling with narrative velocity, its a for the new millennium, a reminder of how much fun fiction can be.Anthony Doerr, author of winner of the Pulitzer Prize

David Mitchell doesnt break rules so much as he proves them to be inhibitors to lively intelligent fiction.#1 bestselling author Dean Koontz