In Matthew Lyons' pulse-pounding crime horror, A Mask of Flies, a criminal on the run after a failed heist must confront dark family secrets and demons from her past made flesh.
One of Lit Hub's Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Books of 2024! | Longlisted for Reading the West Book Awards!
THE PAST HAS TEETH
In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family's cabin - a secluded shack in Colorado's San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother's untimely death.
Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne's badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she's taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother's past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.
Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend's face. Something hungry...
"An addictive thrill ride." -Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
About the Author :
MATTHEW LYONS is the author of the novels A Mask of Flies, A Black and Endless Sky, and The Night Will Find Us, as well as over three dozen short stories, appearing in the 2018 edition of Best American Short Stories, Tough, Southwest Review, and more.
Review :
One of Lit Hub's Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Books of 2024!
Longlisted for Reading the West Book Awards!
"A Mask of Flies blows through the intersection at Horror Street and Crime Avenue and doesn't let off the accelerator as it takes you on a white-knuckled ride to places you do not expect."
--Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Black River Orchard
"Cinematic, gruesome, hyper-violent, and fun as hell, A Mask of Flies fits perfectly in that nexus between propulsive crime fiction and scream-your-head-off horror. I loved every page of it."
--Keith Rosson, author of Fever House
"Lyons wows in this atmospheric horror novel. Evocative prose enhances a riveting noir plot populated by expertly shaded characters. Add in some Lovecraftian overtones, and this proves an addictive thrill ride."
--Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
"A gory crime novel smashed up against a harrowing tale of cosmic horror--but beneath the thrilling action scenes, grisly violence, and unimaginable terrors, readers will find a beating heart full of love, ready to hope even in a seemingly hopeless world. Matthew Lyons is the real deal."
--Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
"A Mask of Flies is a riveting story of shocking violence and the terrible mysteries that families leave behind like scars in your skin. It's desperation, loneliness, and the knock on the door by things that are better off dead."
--Richard Kadrey, New York Times bestselling author
"A wild, heartrending ride."
--Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse
"A delicious mix of crime and horror. Somehow beneath the blood, the nastiness, and the deep, uncanny terror of this novel, Lyons has spun a story of friendship, love, and kindness that will touch your racing heart."
--Wendy N. Wagner, author of The Deer Kings
"A spiraling nightmare of criminals, cops, cabins, cults...and the terrors hiding just beyond the spotlight of memory."
--Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings
"Matthew Lyons' bare knuckle prose is brutal enough to split skin, split lips, split the reader's soul straight down the middle. A Mask of Flies pulls no punches and finds a particular poetry in its bloodshed that resonates long after you've been knocked out."
--Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters
"A Mask of Flies has all the propulsive momentum of a crime thriller, with the vast, unknowable dread of cosmic horror waiting just below the surface. Terrifying, romantic, and above all, Matthew Lyons's best book yet."
--Lindsay King-Miller, author of The Z Word
"This visceral novel is filled with shoot-outs, body horror, and cults, and yet, ultimately it is a story defined by love and acceptance."
--Library Journal
"[A] ruthless display of skill, carving a raw and screaming path down into the abyss. It's like Lovecraft and Laird Barron by way of Tarantino and Cormac McCarthy."
--Gemma Files, award-winning author of Experimental Film and In That Endlessness Our End
"An epic journey not for the faint-hearted....This novel keeps you on edge from the first page, with unabated tension and bone-crunching twists."
--Grimdark Magazine
