People don’t live. Only stories live. Jack Mathis, a bright young book editor in Chicago, has found the next great American writer. Yet this anonymous genius is inspired to create in the darkest way imaginable: he picks his victims carefully, murders them gruesomely, then gives them new life in the best stories Jack has ever read. The writer knows all about Jack. All about his wife. Knows everything. He has more stories in mind, too. Jack wants them. But what is he willing to do to get them?