In the shadowed corners of Victorian England, a plague like no other is spreading across Europe, vile, virulent, and unmistakably the work of dark sorcery. Only one man understands how it spreads, and only one man can stop it: if he dares to face the mysterious Egyptian known as Pharos, a figure of mesmerizing danger and ancient power. Cyril Forrester, an artist haunted by past tragedy, finds himself entangled with this sinister force after rescuing a drowning stranger, a seemingly charitable act that draws him inexorably into Pharos's web of manipulation and menace. As family secrets surface and the death toll mounts, Forrester must navigate a world where friendship masks betrayal and the supernatural bleeds into the everyday. Boothby crafts a Gothic thriller that pulses with fin-de-siècle dread, combining the atmospheric menace of Dracula with the exotic villainy of his own infamous creation, Nikola. This is a novel for readers who crave Victorian darkness, romantic intrigue laced with genuine peril, and the thrill of watching a decent man fall under the spell of absolute evil.
