Genre Fiction
![Keith Rosson - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B01MZ5B05P.jpg)
Fever House: A Novel
A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand whose dark powers threaten to destroy them all.
"The unsettling darkness of Joe Hill meets the cryptic mystery of The X-Files, Fever House is a wild ride through a funhouse apocalypse that will stick to your mind like clotted blood."-Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Violence
One of NPR's Most Anticipated Books of the Summer
When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client's refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch's tail, more of the city's residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . .
But it's all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a singer whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall were followed by the mysterious death of her estranged husband-suicide, allegedly. Her trauma has made her agoraphobic, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her son, Nick, has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living working for Hutch's boss.
When Hutch calls Nick in distress, looking for someone else to take the hand, Katherine and Nick are plunged into a global struggle that will decimate the walls of the carefully arranged life they've built. Mother and son must evade both crazed, bloodthirsty masses and deceitful government agents while exorcising family secrets that have risen from the dead-secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to humanity's survival.
Can you resist the hand? Find an excerpt from the next Fever House novel at the end of the book.
"The unsettling darkness of Joe Hill meets the cryptic mystery of The X-Files, Fever House is a wild ride through a funhouse apocalypse that will stick to your mind like clotted blood."-Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Violence
One of NPR's Most Anticipated Books of the Summer
When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client's refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch's tail, more of the city's residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . .
But it's all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a singer whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall were followed by the mysterious death of her estranged husband-suicide, allegedly. Her trauma has made her agoraphobic, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her son, Nick, has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living working for Hutch's boss.
When Hutch calls Nick in distress, looking for someone else to take the hand, Katherine and Nick are plunged into a global struggle that will decimate the walls of the carefully arranged life they've built. Mother and son must evade both crazed, bloodthirsty masses and deceitful government agents while exorcising family secrets that have risen from the dead-secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to humanity's survival.
Can you resist the hand? Find an excerpt from the next Fever House novel at the end of the book.
Editorial Reviews
"[A] whirlwind mystery . . . that hurls [Rosson's] genre-slashing ambition into the stratosphere."-NPR
"Fever House is an extraordinary novel, a wild but seamless hybrid of hoodlum noir, government agency skullduggery, punk nostalgia, and the apocalypse foretold. Keith Rosson is a master."-Richard Price, New York Times bestselling author of The Whites and Clockers
"Fever House is like being electrocuted with an awesome story and sharp, snapping prose. It somehow executes noir, pulp, spy thriller and visceral crime horror as one entire package and doesn't skip a beat doing it."-Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Black River Orchard
"What a time to be undead! Keith Rosson has written an epic nightmare of a book, the kind that will jolt you out of whatever reading rut you've fallen into."-Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of White Cat, Black Dog
"[This] wildly imaginative new novel is a thrill-a-minute joyride that will keep readers guessing up to the final page. . . ."-Library Journal
"Angels and ministers of grace don't have a chance in hell against this nasty, fun-to-read indulgence."-Kirkus Reviews
"Fever House is awesome. . . . Great writing . . . also scary as Hell! A really excellent book that should not be missed."-Robert R. McCammon, New York Times bestselling author of Swan Song and The King of Shadows
"This book is rock and roll, horror, and noir in a blender. . . . A bullet of a wild ride straight to Hell, and mightily entertaining along the way."-Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
"Fever House is an extraordinary novel, a wild but seamless hybrid of hoodlum noir, government agency skullduggery, punk nostalgia, and the apocalypse foretold. Keith Rosson is a master."-Richard Price, New York Times bestselling author of The Whites and Clockers
"Fever House is like being electrocuted with an awesome story and sharp, snapping prose. It somehow executes noir, pulp, spy thriller and visceral crime horror as one entire package and doesn't skip a beat doing it."-Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Black River Orchard
"What a time to be undead! Keith Rosson has written an epic nightmare of a book, the kind that will jolt you out of whatever reading rut you've fallen into."-Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of White Cat, Black Dog
"[This] wildly imaginative new novel is a thrill-a-minute joyride that will keep readers guessing up to the final page. . . ."-Library Journal
"Angels and ministers of grace don't have a chance in hell against this nasty, fun-to-read indulgence."-Kirkus Reviews
"Fever House is awesome. . . . Great writing . . . also scary as Hell! A really excellent book that should not be missed."-Robert R. McCammon, New York Times bestselling author of Swan Song and The King of Shadows
"This book is rock and roll, horror, and noir in a blender. . . . A bullet of a wild ride straight to Hell, and mightily entertaining along the way."-Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
Short Excerpt Teaser
HUTCH HOLTZ
Tim Reed sits in the driver's seat of his ancient and rust-punched Datsun hatchback, balancing a screwdriver on the tip of his finger. Hutch and Tim are killing time, waiting for some poor guy to come home so they can terrify him and, if necessary, perform grievous harm to the fragile architecture of the man's body. It's the usual deal: reluctance to pay a debt owed. When this happens, when their boss encounters someone offering resistance, there are phone calls. Verbal requests. Polite reminders. A process old as time. And finally, after all that, Tim and Hutch come by. It's just work. The screwdriver handle, pitted red plastic, wavers only slightly as they sit in the gloom, Tim's features lit pale green by the ghostly glow of the dashboard. The rain's coming down so hard it sounds like someone's flinging pennies onto the roof.
Hutch runs an arm across the fogged window but there's nothing out there to see. Sweet and gentle homes locked in slumber. Windows glowing, cars snug in their driveways. A nice neighborhood. It still surprises him sometimes, the vastness of people they get sent to talk to. All different sorts. Often, they're the furthest things from hard men. Just regular folks. Regular people with their big ideas vanished, people suddenly stuck behind one too many bad moves.
Hutch finally tells Tim to put the screwdriver away.
"Why?"
"Because it's gonna look f***ed up if a cop drives by and glasses us, is why."
They had a thing go south last week, marginally south, Hutch and Tim and a lazy-eyed meth addict named Dolph, and Hutch's knuckles are still scabbed-up from it. Tim's cheek laddered with scratches from Dolph's dirty fingernails. That sort of thing rarely happens, but they already look sketchy as hell.
"Just do it," Hutch says.
Tim sighs and drops the screwdriver to the floorboard.
They wait. The rain tapers off a little. Tim smokes, cracks the window. They've parked across the street from the guy's house. Hutch gets a little nervous every time headlights roll across the windshield. Tim's car-its rear passenger window a milky cataract of plastic and duct tape, the seats so shredded it looks like a family of four has died of a knife attack inside-doesn't fit the street. The guy most certainly has enough money to upgrade to something nicer. Something that doesn't look like shit, at least. Feels like a big screw-you to the world, this car. They're both felons, and Tim, he knows, has a .38 tucked behind a panel in the driver's-side door. Guy's still on parole too. They're both a wrong look away from going back to prison.
They wait. Listen to Tim's tapes. When Peach Serrano sends you to retrieve a debt, you retrieve it.
"What my concern is," Tim says after a while, lighting another smoke off the previous one, "is which king died and made you, like, second in command. That's my question."
"You're being serious with this?"
Tim shrugs, pushes a lock of dark hair behind his ear. "Have they, like, sewn a tapestry with your face on it, my lord? Your f***ing countenance or whatever? You sitting on your throne, looking all majestic?"
"Look around you," Hutch says. "Now look at us. Look at your car."
"I don't get what that has to do with me dicking around with a screwdriver-"
"Because," Hutch says, actually getting kind of mad now, "the last thing we need is some cop driving by this piece-of-shit ride of yours, thinking you're in here playing with a knife or something. ‘Oh, no, it's actually just a screwdriver, officer. We're just two f***ing leg-breakers hanging out in the dark, sir. Felons, with an unregistered piece. No problem at all, sir, how are you?' "
Tim sniffs. "This still doesn't explain why it is that you-"
They're saved when a car pulls into the driveway of the house. Tim nods, immediately all business, and Hutch starts the stopwatch feature on his watch. They step out quickly-Tim long since having smashed out the dome light-and walk fast and quiet across the street.
"Excuse me," Hutch says. The guy's leaning over, getting groceries out of the backseat, in a hurry to get out of the rain. He's just some guy. White, doughy. Khakis and a North Face jacket. Where do they come from, these people? How does a guy like this get in deep with Peach? He looks as dangerous as a painting in a motel room. The fear walks large across his face.
It makes sense: It's raining, dark. There's two guys standing in his driveway. One of them a huge smokestack of a man with half his head dented in. The other one grinning with yellow smoker's teeth and a scuffed leather jacket and a-is that a screwdriver he's holding in his hand? It is. Hutch swears under his brea...
Tim Reed sits in the driver's seat of his ancient and rust-punched Datsun hatchback, balancing a screwdriver on the tip of his finger. Hutch and Tim are killing time, waiting for some poor guy to come home so they can terrify him and, if necessary, perform grievous harm to the fragile architecture of the man's body. It's the usual deal: reluctance to pay a debt owed. When this happens, when their boss encounters someone offering resistance, there are phone calls. Verbal requests. Polite reminders. A process old as time. And finally, after all that, Tim and Hutch come by. It's just work. The screwdriver handle, pitted red plastic, wavers only slightly as they sit in the gloom, Tim's features lit pale green by the ghostly glow of the dashboard. The rain's coming down so hard it sounds like someone's flinging pennies onto the roof.
Hutch runs an arm across the fogged window but there's nothing out there to see. Sweet and gentle homes locked in slumber. Windows glowing, cars snug in their driveways. A nice neighborhood. It still surprises him sometimes, the vastness of people they get sent to talk to. All different sorts. Often, they're the furthest things from hard men. Just regular folks. Regular people with their big ideas vanished, people suddenly stuck behind one too many bad moves.
Hutch finally tells Tim to put the screwdriver away.
"Why?"
"Because it's gonna look f***ed up if a cop drives by and glasses us, is why."
They had a thing go south last week, marginally south, Hutch and Tim and a lazy-eyed meth addict named Dolph, and Hutch's knuckles are still scabbed-up from it. Tim's cheek laddered with scratches from Dolph's dirty fingernails. That sort of thing rarely happens, but they already look sketchy as hell.
"Just do it," Hutch says.
Tim sighs and drops the screwdriver to the floorboard.
They wait. The rain tapers off a little. Tim smokes, cracks the window. They've parked across the street from the guy's house. Hutch gets a little nervous every time headlights roll across the windshield. Tim's car-its rear passenger window a milky cataract of plastic and duct tape, the seats so shredded it looks like a family of four has died of a knife attack inside-doesn't fit the street. The guy most certainly has enough money to upgrade to something nicer. Something that doesn't look like shit, at least. Feels like a big screw-you to the world, this car. They're both felons, and Tim, he knows, has a .38 tucked behind a panel in the driver's-side door. Guy's still on parole too. They're both a wrong look away from going back to prison.
They wait. Listen to Tim's tapes. When Peach Serrano sends you to retrieve a debt, you retrieve it.
"What my concern is," Tim says after a while, lighting another smoke off the previous one, "is which king died and made you, like, second in command. That's my question."
"You're being serious with this?"
Tim shrugs, pushes a lock of dark hair behind his ear. "Have they, like, sewn a tapestry with your face on it, my lord? Your f***ing countenance or whatever? You sitting on your throne, looking all majestic?"
"Look around you," Hutch says. "Now look at us. Look at your car."
"I don't get what that has to do with me dicking around with a screwdriver-"
"Because," Hutch says, actually getting kind of mad now, "the last thing we need is some cop driving by this piece-of-shit ride of yours, thinking you're in here playing with a knife or something. ‘Oh, no, it's actually just a screwdriver, officer. We're just two f***ing leg-breakers hanging out in the dark, sir. Felons, with an unregistered piece. No problem at all, sir, how are you?' "
Tim sniffs. "This still doesn't explain why it is that you-"
They're saved when a car pulls into the driveway of the house. Tim nods, immediately all business, and Hutch starts the stopwatch feature on his watch. They step out quickly-Tim long since having smashed out the dome light-and walk fast and quiet across the street.
"Excuse me," Hutch says. The guy's leaning over, getting groceries out of the backseat, in a hurry to get out of the rain. He's just some guy. White, doughy. Khakis and a North Face jacket. Where do they come from, these people? How does a guy like this get in deep with Peach? He looks as dangerous as a painting in a motel room. The fear walks large across his face.
It makes sense: It's raining, dark. There's two guys standing in his driveway. One of them a huge smokestack of a man with half his head dented in. The other one grinning with yellow smoker's teeth and a scuffed leather jacket and a-is that a screwdriver he's holding in his hand? It is. Hutch swears under his brea...
