After a strange murder case hits her desk, Detective Vicky Patterson realizes her nightmare is just beginning. Her young daughter, Sadie, is attacked by a swarm of cicadas recently awakened from their seventeen-year cycle on the same day. Sadie barely escapes and is in critical condition.
All the way across town, dysfunctional private investigators Will and Alicia hunt for a missing girl and the cult responsible for her disappearance. Then the first wave of insects hit, trapping them in a motel. Forced to barricade, the pair work with a group of strangers to outlast the attack.
With the infestation impossible to control, all of humanity rests on the edge of extinction. There is a terrible purpose for the emergence of the cicadas, a purpose Vicky, Will, Alicia, and some unlikely allies must unravel to survive the brutal attacks.
It begins with cicadas. It will end with the swarm.
Why we’re excited about this book:
In just a few years, Andy Marino has staked his claim in both horror fiction for adults and historical fiction for young readers. Marino is the author of The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess and It Rides a Pale Horse, with fiction for young readers such as Escape from East Berlin, Escape from Chernobyl, and and The Plot to Kill Hitler trilogy. With his latest, Marino presents a nightmarish apocalypse, our world infested with vicious cicadas, bringing humans to the brink of extinction. Nick Cutter (The Troop) says: “The literary equivalent of swallowing a wasp that’s crawled inside your Coke can, The Swarm is a burst of bright, unexpected, feverish prose blazing straight across your brain-pan. If you like that kind of thing (and I very much do) then do yourself a favor and read this book.” and Philip Fracassi (A Child Alone with Strangers) says: “Andy Marino’s The Swarm is gruesomely visceral and painfully heartbreaking; an ambitious, terrifying tale that will burrow beneath your skin only to lay eggs that will hatch as nightmares. It’s a no-holds-barred apocalyptic epic that will forever change the way you view the status—and future—of humans on this planet.”
Releasing from Redhook 5 November 2024, The Swarm by Andy Marino is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA