With extinction imminent, researchers visit an exclusive national park to observe one of the last troops of bonobo chimpanzees. Amid unusual behaviour and unexplained deaths, Shel Murray suspects her team is being hunted. Back at home, Shel's partner is attacked touring their new property. Amnesiac and quarantined, John is visited by an inscrutable doctor, tending to the still fresh wounds. As his memory returns, John questions not only the assault, but the renewed marks on his body, and the black fungus now growing on the walls.
A sudden event changes everything. Shel is interrogated over the expedition in the park; John throws himself into work, developing new software. Together, with a greater understanding of how much they have to lose, they face a grave threat, something that promises to devour everything.
Martin MacInnes was born in Inverness in 1983. He has an MA from the University of York, has read at international science and literature festivals, and is the winner of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and the 2014 Manchester Fiction Prize. He lives in Edinburgh.
Shel Murray, a primate researcher, is sent to lead a small team investigating suspicious deaths in one of the last remaining troops of bonobo chimpanzees. Establishing base in a national park controlled by an elusive conglomerate, the team encounter odd, then alarming behaviour, suggestions of an unknown predator, and they begin to consider their own safety. Back at home, Shel's partner, John, a software engineer, is attacked, suffering head trauma. As he tries to rebuild his memory, in a remote house shrouded in fog, he starts to question not only the assault, but his present circumstances. How can he explain the fresh wounds on his body, and the activity he hears during the night? Can he really trust his doctor? And how much should he worry about the pattern of mould growing along the front of the house?Through their respective projects, Shel and John must confront the threat they face. And a surprise event means that they have never had so much to lose as they have right now.
