The Ancient

Alien, on a container ship. Scary and unputdownable, Stephen King Amongst towering mountains of trash in the backstreets of Lima, three young boys are trying to raise an ancient demon. They don't think their incantation has worked; but that night a teenage drugrunner is gunned down across their makeshift altar. As his killers walk away, his body stirs. Not because it still contains a spark of life. But because something is stirring beneath it Port Callao. The MV Lysicrates, a three-quarter-mile long supertanker, is being loaded with hundreds of tonnes of trash. Watching from the bridge, in a bleary state of hungover gloom, is second-in-command Matthew Cotton; more interesting is the arrival of a young American student who has missed the boat she should have been on. They should have paid more attention to the trash. With its powerful blend of superb characterisation and demonic horror, Muriel Gray's new novel is her best yet.