The Devil's Alphabet (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780345501172)

From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy.

Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease-dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)-vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.

Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn't change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.

Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker-and far weirder-mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax's future but the future of the whole human race.

Author: Daryl Gregory
ISBN-10: 0345501179
ISBN-13: 9780345501172
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Language: English
Published: 11/24/2009
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.68lbs
Size: 8.24h x 5.54w x 0.81d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2009
Library Journal 10/15/2009 pg. 68
Publishers Weekly 10/12/2009 pg. 35
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/02/2009 pg. 25
Romantic Times 12/01/2009 pg. 69 - Good