Sinister Societies

We all have secrets.

That's one truth. Another is that secrets are tricky to keep: They want to be shared. In the company of these secrets, societies emerge. They fester and spread. From the esoteric to the pragmatic, history is built on these societies made as much of myth and rumor as blood and bone.

Some societies are real organizations with documented histories. The Freemasons. The Molly Maguires.

Some are patchwork figments of speculation, conspiracy theory, and perhaps even the delicious specter of world domination. The Illuminati.

And some take other forms: from cults to covens to covert operations, secrets can bind us to the society of others or split us apart with sinister intent.

In Sinister Societies, six acclaimed horror writers explore these darker implications:

• A foster kid finally feels as though she's a part of something much bigger than the hellish life she was living, when a new home brings her old life into fractious focus.
• A secret agent-a dancer, singer, assassin-investigates a series of mysterious murders in Europe that point to an invisible killer with inhuman characteristics.
• In a dark, dreamy town, a line of otherworldly women is tasked with keeping the carnivorous landscape at bay.
• An accidental murder in a Cleveland, Ohio alleyway during the height of Prohibition-and the discovery of a mysterious book-sparks a series of events that threaten to engulf the entire world.
• In a late-1800s mining town, the Molly Maguires arrive to help workers fight for better working conditions-but even they can't save the ones sent to work in Tunnel 17.
• The Rat King controls the underground, and the Coin King controls the overstreets, but when a pickpocket proves that power can be stolen, chaos reigns.

Join Mercedes M. Yardley, Tom Deady, Sarah Read, Errick Nunnally, Cindy O'Quinn, and Michael Burke as they uncover the darkness that infests the hidden corners of the mind and the soul.

With a foreword by John Skipp. Edited by Linda Hartley.