Hammers on Bone

Cassandra Khaw

Oct 2016 · Persons Non Grata Book 1 · Sold by Tordotcom

About this eBook

Cassandra Khaw bursts onto the scene with Hammers on Bone, a hard-boiled horror show that Charles Stross calls "possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016." A finalist for the British Fantasy award and the Locus Award for Best Novella!


John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.

He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.

As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Reminded me of a lot of the grit and imagery of The Devil's Detective. Great short read.

Great read with great imagery. Not a big fan of the action scenes but many-eyed monstrosities make up for it.

Am hooked on Khaw's witty, bitter and unsettling take on Lovecraft's Mythos.

About the author

CASSANDRA KHAW is an award-winning game writer, and currently works as a scriptwriter for Ubisoft Montreal. Khaw's work can be found in places like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. Khaw's first original novella, Hammers on Bone, was a British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist.