Was it a miracle or a curse? Peter should have died in that terrible fall, but he doesn't just survive his appalling injuries: he thrives as his body is slowly and miraculously transformed. Younger, stronger, deeply in love with the beautiful girl who saved him, he's haunted by visions of a repulsive creature who tells him there's a hideous price to be paid for his unnatural rebirth. Apprenticed to a wise and powerful being that no one else can see, ferocious instincts awaken within him. His new life rapidly descends into strangeness and sadistic violence, as he begins to fulfil the gruesome destiny laid out for him by the monster in his dreams. When everything he cares about is cruelly ripped away by an enemy of brutal savagery, he becomes consumed by the struggle for survival and his quest for revenge. Yet in the midst of his descent into inescapable madness, he falls in love again with a stunning young woman, possessed by her irresistible sexual magic. He must battle to protect this fragile joy in a labyrinth filled with predatory gods, dark angels and psychotic devils, while he fights to unravel the black secret that lies at the heart of his horrific fate. PETER JACKAL is a writer with a unique gift. Plagued by visions of the unknown since childhood, he translates his extraordinary perceptions into astonishingly original parables of horror and magic. In The Shadow of Death, he skilfully describes one man's shocking discovery of the truth from which the fables of heaven and hell were born. Its darkly beautiful language weaves the haunting overtones of a gothic horror classic into the sharp edges of a fast-paced, shockingly cruel and utterly compelling thriller about preternatural rape, murder and hate that transcends the grave. With breathtakingly vivid descriptions of altered states of mind and beautifully written scenes of supernatural sex, at its core lies a story of tender and tragic love that will make you feel the frailty of the visible world, and the torture of the human soul once the fabric of reality begins to crumble away.