A Mask of Flies

In Matthew Lyons’ pulse-pounding crime horror, A Mask of Flies, a criminal on the run after a failed heist must confront dark family secrets and demons from her past made flesh.

One of Lit Hub’s Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Books of 2024! Longlisted for Reading the West Book Awards!

THE PAST HAS TEETH

In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin - a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death.

Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.

Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.

Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend’s face. Something hungry...

＂An addictive thrill ride.＂ --Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

MATTHEW LYONS is the author of the novels A Mask of Flies, A Black and Endless Sky, and The Night Will Find Us, as well as over three dozen short stories, appearing in the 2018 edition of Best American Short Stories, Tough, Southwest Review, and more.