A serial killer is removing victims' hands in a Venice shackled by winter. A woman at the end of her tether finds a terrible release on holiday in the fens of East Anglia. A man is haunted by graffiti, and finds that his road to discovering the perpetrator leads to death. and worse. A husband trying to comfort his terminally ill wife seeks help in a forbidden zone from his childhood, where blood is the price of perfection. In this spellbinding collection of his best stories from the last ten years, award-winning writer Conrad Williams offers the kind of horrors that move subtly into you, like pain, or love, or regret. They are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within these pages you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies. —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Includes three stories never before Nest of Salt, The Night Before and The Owl. Contents The Machine Supple Bodies The Light that Passes Through You Nest of Salt City in Aspic Other Skins The Windmill Wire The Burn The Owl The Night Before Edge MacCreadle's Bike Known The Suicide Pit Excuse the Unusual Approach Nearly People Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.