The Fireman

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box comes an unnerving novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes

Stay cool . . .

No one knows exactly when or where it began. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one . . . Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that tattoos its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks—before causing them to burst into flames.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse treated hundreds of infected patients before contracting the deadly virus herself. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper now wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their once-placid New England community collapses in terror.

But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger, a man wearing a dirty yellow firefighter’s jacket and carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known simply as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

. . . The Fireman is coming.

Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box; Strange Weather, a collection of novellas; and the acclaimed story collections Full Throttle and 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the Eisner Award–winning writer of a seven-volume comic book series, Locke & Key. Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV, including NOS4A2 (AMC), Locke & Key (Netflix), In the Tall Grass (Netflix), and The Black Phone (Blumhouse).

“Original and gripping, a page-turner.” — George R. R. Martin on THE FIREMAN

“[A] superb supernatural thriller . . . a tremendous, heartrending epic of bravery and love set in a fully realized and terrifying apocalyptic world, where hope lies in the simplest of gestures and the fullest of hearts.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on THE FIRMAN

“Hill has a talent for depicting fascinating characters caught in terrible situations. . . . With a full cast of characters and multiple story lines to keep the reader hooked, Hill’s enthralling fourth thriller hits another home run.” — Library Journal (starred review) on THE FIREMAN

“Joe Hill has always been good, but he’s created something incandescent here, soaring and original. He’s a master storyteller who writes with fire in his veins.” — Lauren Beukes, author of BROKEN MONSTERS on THE FIREMAN

“Fascinating and utterly engaging, this novel is sure to leave readers wanting more. One thing is for certain, however. After reading this book, readers will never hear Christmas carols in quite the same way again.” — Library Journal (starred review) on NOS4A2

“[An] undeniably readable work.” — Booklist (starred review) on NOS4A2

“Read it with the lights on and your children locked in a closet.” — BookRiot.com on NOS4A2

[Hill]’s got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun.” — Kirkus on HEART-SHAPED BOX

“[A] wrenching and effective ghost story . . . reads like good, early King mixed with some of the edgier splatterpunk sensibilities of David J. Schow . . . [HEART-SHAPED BOX] has genuinely touching emotional moments as well as action-packed confrontations with the dead.” — Library Journal (starred review) on HEART-SHAPED BOX

“A genuinely scary novel filled with people you care about; the kind of book that still stays in your mind after you’ve turned over the final page. I loved it unreservedly.” — Neil Gaiman, author of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE on HEART-SHAPED BOX

“[HORNS is] a creepy murder mystery, a tragic love triangle, and a sweetly wistful coming-of-age story. It’s the kind of book that has you laughing on one page, crying on another and making sure the doors and windows are safely locked on a third.” — Miami Herald on HORNS

“[Horns is] devilishly good. . . . Hill is a terrific writer with a great imagination. He has a special talent for taking us and his characters to very weird places.” — USA Today on HORNS

-