From New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, a wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy and his dog and their journey to escape the fires of hell. “Roald Dahl meets Harry Potter”* in this wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy, his dog, and their struggle to escape the wrath of demons. Young Samuel Johnson is in trouble. Not only is his eyesight so poor that he mistakenly asks out a letter box on a date but an angry demon wants revenge for Samuel’s part in foiling the invasion of Earth by the forces of evil. When Samuel and his faithful dachshund, Boswell, are pulled through a portal into the dark realm, home of the Infernals, it gets its chance. Catching Samuel won’t be easy, for the Infernals have not reckoned on the bravery and cleverness of a boy and his dog; a hapless demon’s loyalty to the duo; or the presence of two clueless policemen and an unlucky, if cheerfully optimistic, ice-cream man. Most of all, no one has planned on the intervention of an unexpected band of little men who also have recently found themselves in the underworld. If you thought demons were frightening, just wait until you meet Mr. Merryweather’s Elves. . . . *My Shelf Confessions "Brilliantly funny, often touching, with enough action to keep adventure fans on the edges of their chairs, this novel combines top-notch writing with cutting wit."--"Kirkus Reviews" "Connolly lets his imagination and his wit run delightfully wild as he describes Hell's denizens and the human band's pilgrimage through its geography."--"New Orleans Times-Picayune" "Connolly's graceful prose, laced with acerbically witty footnotes, is a joy to read, and he easily alternates among slapstick comedy, powerful drama, and skin-crawling horror."--"Publishers Weekly" "Roald Dahl meets Harry Potter."--My Shelf Confessions John Connolly is the author of Every Dead Thing , Dark Hollow , The Killing Kind , The White Road , Bad Men , Nocturnes , and The Black Angel . He is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnolly.co.uk. I In Which We Find Ourselves in Hell, but Only Temporarily, So It’s Not All Bad News THE PLACE GENERALLY REFERRED to as Hell but also known variously as Hades, the Kingdom of Fire, Old Nick’s Place,1 and assorted other names designed to indicate that this is not somewhere in which you might want to spend eternity, let alone a short vacation, was in a state of turmoil. Its ruler, its dark king, was unwell, and by “unwell” I mean mad as a parade of March hares. This source of all Evil, the ancient thing that hid itself in the darkest part of Hell, also had many names, but his followers called him the Great Malevolence. He wished for many things: he wished for every star in every universe to be snuffed out like candle flames between his fingers; he wished for all beauty to cease to be; he wished for cold, and blackness, and a great silence that would last forever. Most of all, he wished for the end of mankind. He had grown weary of trying to corrupt every human being, one by one, because it was time-consuming, and frustrating, and a lot of human beings continued to defy him by being decent and kind. While he hadn’t exactly decided to give up on his efforts entirely, it just seemed easier to destroy the Earth and have done with it, and so he had come up with a plan. At the time, it had seemed like a very good plan, and as far as the Great Malevolence and his followers had been concerned, there was absolutely no way that it could go wrong. None whatsoever. Not a chance. This plan positively and without a shadow of a doubt could not fail. Naturally, it failed spectacularly. Now, for those of you who may not be entirely familiar with our story so far, here is a chance for you to catch up.2 When last we met, the Great Malevolence, aided by the demon known as Ba’al, was trying to harness the power of the Large Hadron Collide in order to open the gates of Hell and force his way into our world. The LHC was a massive particle accelerator in Switzerland designed to re-create the moments after the Big Bang that brought our universe into being. In other words, the LHC was dealing with very primal forces indeed, and buried somewhere in those primal forces was the seed of Evil. Thus it was that the Collider created a fissure between worlds, and the Great Malevolence saw his chance. Ba’al, his most trusted servant, passed through a portal connecting Hell to Earth, and disguised itself as a woman named Mrs. Abernathy in Biddlecombe, England, having first killed the original Mrs. Abernathy and taken on her appearance. At the last minute, just as the Great Malevolence and his armies were about to take over the Earth, Mrs. Abernathy’s plans were foiled by a small boy named Samuel Johnson, his dachshund Boswell, and an inept, although well-meaning, demon named Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities. The Great Malevolence blamed Mrs