Creating George Stark was easy. Getting rid of him won't be . . .

The sparrows are flying again. The idea - unbidden, inexplicable - haunts the edge of Thad Beaumont's mind.

Thad should be happy. For years now it is his secret persona 'George Stark', author of super-violent pulp thrillers, who has paid the family bills. But now, Thad is writing seriously again under his own name, and his menacing pseudonym has been buried forever.

And yet . . . the sparrows are flying again, and something is terribly wrong in Thad Beaumont's world.