WINNER OF THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • While investigating his nephew’s disappearance, a man discovers a twisted web of secrets that threatens everything he holds dear in this “masterful tale of ultra horror” ( Entertainment Weekly ) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story . “A nuanced, layered reworking of the haunted house story.”— The Philadelphia Inquirer A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son—beautiful, troubled fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill—vanishes from the face of the earth. To his uncle, horror novelist Timothy Underhill, Mark’s inexplicable absence feels like a second death. After his sister-in-law’s funeral, Tim searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help him unravel this mystery of death and disappearance. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother’s suicide Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house on Michigan street whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled upon its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain. “ Lost Boy Lost Girl may be the best book of [Peter Straub’s] career.” —Stephen King “Genuinely creepy.” — The New York Times Book Review “A lost boy and a lost girl, a serial killer and a haunted house, a suicide and a kidnapping—Straub’s masterful tale of ultra horror is all that and a bag of chips!” — Entertainment Weekly (The Must List) “Eerie, unnerving, and concise . . . dark and surprisingly moving.” — The Miami Herald “Straub is the master of subtle, smoldering dread. . . . This consummate horror novelist’s creepy, erudite vision of the beyond will chill you like the winter wind.” — People “A real thinking-person’s thriller, a nuanced, layered reworking of the haunted house story, genuinely creepy.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer “A near-perfect amalgam of mystery and horror that marks yet another high point in Straub’s excellent career as a novelist . . . [He is] at the height of his storytelling powers. This one is his spookiest, most unnerving solo effort since Ghost Story .” — Denver Post “Peter Straub is just plain scary, never more so than in lost boy lost gir l . . . an inspired mixture of creative dread and delight, seamlessly crafted so to defy description. . . . [He] breathes life into the dead, making it seem entirely possible, even logical, for such spirits to exist. . . . While the fear factor scores high, Straub makes it flow naturally because, not despite, a story line that stubbornly refuses to stick to chronology or a single narrative voice. He tells many stories in one.” — The Columbus Dispatch “A whale of a book.” — Dark Realms “This is the great novel of the supernatural Straub has always had in him to write . . . beautiful, moving, and spiritually rich.” — Booklist “Strikingly imagined.” — Kirkus Reviews “A ghost story, a serial killer story, a haunted house story and an unhappy family story told from multiple perspectives . . . taut and surprisingly moving, a treat even for those who don’t believe in ghosts . . . [Straub] is a deft and literate storyteller who makes you believe in the impossible.” — Detroit News Peter Straub authored numerous bestselling novels, including Ghost Story , Floating Dragon , Shadowland , and Julia —as well as The Talisman and Black House , which he co-authored with Stephen King. He also published short fiction, poetry, and a graphic novel. A prolific Grand Master of Horror, he won the British Fantasy Award; ten Bram Stoker Awards; three International Horror Guild Awards; ten World Fantasy Awards; and was the recipient of several Lifetime Achievement Awards. He passed away in 2022. 1 Nancy Underhill’s death had been unexpected, abrupt—a death like a slap in the face. Tim, her husband’s older brother, knew nothing more. He could scarcely be said really to have known Nancy. On examination, Timothy Underhill’s memories of his sister-in-law shrank into a tiny collection of snapshots. Here was Nancy’s dark, fragile smile as she knelt beside her two-year-old son, Mark, in 1990; here she was, in another moment from that same visit, snatching up little Mark, both of them in tears, from his baby seat and rushing from the dim unadorned dining room. Philip, whose morose carping had driven his wife from the room, sat glaring at the dried-out pot roast, deliberately ignoring his brother’s presence. When at last he looked up, Philip said, “What?” Ah Philip, you were ever a wonder. The kid can’t help being a turd, Pop said once. It seems to be one of the few things that make him feel good. One more of cruel memory’s snapshots, this from an odd, ev