Keeper of the Children

The New York Times–bestselling author of The Search for Joseph Tully delivers “a mixture of horror and occultism told with driving force” (The New York Times).

Eddie Benson is a typical middle-class father with a secure job, a home in suburban Philadelphia, and a seemingly happy family. For Benson life holds no fear or terror. Then something unusual happens. One day his daughter, Renni, a normal, fun-loving fourteen-year-old, disappears.

Soon after, Eddie finds her wandering the streets of Philadelphia with a band of children. Dressed in orange robes, they bear drums and tambourines and cymbals. Moving through the crowds, they dance and sing and proffer metal bowls for coins. The children refuse to return to their homes. The youngsters, their parents have learned, are living with a mysterious Tibetan monk with strange, otherworldly powers. What follows is a series of bone-chilling incidents, each more violent than the last, all inexplicable. Only Eddie Benson will not abandon hope. And to rescue his child, Eddie must run a terrible risk, one that could cost him his life and his soul.

“Hallahan improbably makes it work. . . . A careful and serious writer, making the absurd plausible and wringing satisfying suspense out of it.” —Too Much Horror Fiction