Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose meets Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. This brilliant historical epic is inspired by the true story of a man whose crimes were so great he was thought to be a werewolf.

In 1563 Paulus Melchior, lawyer, academic and enlightened rationalist, travels with his young assistant Willy Lessinger to the isolated German town of Bideburg where local landowner, Peter Stumpf, is accused of brutally murdering dozens of people. A society still trapped in a medieval mind set, the townsfolk clamour for the killer to be tried as a werewolf. If their demands are met his blameless wife and children will also be executed in the most barbaric way imaginable as agents of Satan and creatures contaminated by wolf blood.

Paulus and Willy must fight superstition, the cruelty of those who fear what they don't understand, and a zealous church determined to retain its grip on the souls of Bideburg, in this compelling, utterly unforgettable, shocking tour de force.

Neil Mackay is a multi-award winning investigative journalist, newspaper executive, nonfiction author, radio broadcaster and film-maker. His last film, an investigation into the rise of the far right in Europe and America, was nominated for a BAFTA. His book, The War on Truth, which investigated the roots of the invasion of Iraq, was published in the UK and USA. He has written for the Sunday Herald, The Observer, Scotland on Sunday, Ireland's Sunday Tribune, Australia's The Age and most newspapers in Northern Ireland. His first novel, All the Little Guns Went Bang, Bang, Bang was published to great acclaim in 2013.