Cass Neary made her name in the 1970s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures of the musicians and hangers on, the infamous, the damned, and the dead, got her into art galleries and a book deal. But thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out. Then an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Downeast, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and into one final shot at redemption.

"Shimmers with gorgeous writing even as it scares the dickens out of you." —Tess Gerritsen Photographer Cass Neary is already wanted by the police for questioning when she receives a mysterious job offer that sends her to Helsinki, where an iconic fashion photographer shows her a trove of gorgeous photos depicting ritual killings. After narrowly escaping death herself, Cass flees to Iceland, where she finds a former lover and a legendary, exiled musician. Soon, unsolved murders are multiplying faster than Cass can run.

As her passionately devoted fans know, Elizabeth Hand is a uniquely gifted storyteller. Readers were introduced to her iconoclastic crime novels, featuring offbeat photographer Cass Neary, in the underground classic Generation Loss, which was followed by the brilliant Available Dark. In Hard Light, the third book in the series, Cass makes a remarkable discovery that could change our understanding of human history—if she lives long enough to share it. As the story opens Cass arrives in London where she's arranged to meet her long-lost lover, Quinn O'Boyle. When Quinn fails to show at their rendezvous point, Cass meets the eccentric couple Mallo and Morven Dunfries. When Mallo catches Cass rifling his medicine cabinet in search of drugs, he threatens to turn her in to the authorities, then puts her to work as a runner for his illegal goods. Cass makes a delivery to Poppy Teasel, a famous singer from long ago. Cass leaves Poppy's flat but returns a short time later to find the place ransacked and Poppy dead. Fearful she'll become the next victim, Cass goes on the run.

Acclaimed crime writer Elizabeth Hand returns to her cult-favorite series: Photographer Cass Neary is hard-up for cash and in more danger than she realizes, in the hunt for an ancient, legendary book. Cass Neary needs cash to get home to New York, and she's already sold her camera-like losing a limb, for a photographer of her experience. Her best chance is to get in on the deal that Griffin, an old flame, is about cut with a notoriously particular bookseller for a gorgeous, ancient illuminated manuscript: The Book of Lamps and Banners. This Book is more than just a beautiful object-its text and images are said to have a powerful magic capable of life-changing effects on anyone who reads it. But before the sale can be completed, an intruder brazenly steals the Book out from under the dealer's nose. Cass and Griff are the only suspects. To clear their names, and keep the missing text out of dangerous hands, Cass plunges into a curious underworld at the intersection of antiquarian books, cutting-edge software, and modern nationalist politics. This breathless psychological thriller, featuring one of the greatest amateur sleuths of the past decade, could only come from the mind of Elizabeth Hand.