Séance Infernale

At the start of Skariton’s inventive, gruesome first novel set in 2002, enigmatic collector Andrew Valdano hires movie memorabilia dealer Alex Whitman to find a copy of Séance Infernale—the legendary first-ever film, created by mysterious Victorian inventor Augustin Sekuler. A scattering of clues steer Whitman from L.A. to Europe and finally to Edinburgh—the city where his beloved daughter Ellie vanished a decade earlier, a tragedy that shattered his marriage and haunts him to this day. Racing to find the lost film, the world-weary Whitman traces a 19th-century mystery’s entanglement with a present-day series of inhumane crimes committed by an extravagantly psychotic serial killer. Laced with cinematic allusions (especially fun for classic film buffs), the obstacle course of a plot barrels past spooky historical flashbacks and pages of quirky typographic design, culminating in a Da Vinci Code–esque scavenger hunt. Breathless readers will scramble to keep up. Agent: Harvey Klinger, Harvey Klinger Literary Agency. (Aug.)