author : Garth Nix

Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one of the fighting ones) who, with the right-handed booksellers (the intellectual ones), police the mythic and legendary Old World when it intrudes on the modern world, in addition to running several bookshops.

Merlin has a quest of his own, and quickly finds it overlaps strangely with Susan’s: who, or what, was her father? Susan and Merlin must find out, as the Old World erupts dangerously into the New.

The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch here, particularly on the entity who inhabits the ancient hot spring.

But calm can turn to trouble fast in Bath, and unrest is brewing in a place separated from this world. Maintained by deadly sorcery performed by an Ancient Sovereign and guarded by monstrous living statues, it has long lain safely hidden – until a left-handed bookseller, an art student, and a right-handed bookseller unearth a magical map leading the way in.

Discovering more questions than answers, soon the trio find themselves investigating centuries of mysterious deaths. Caught in the web of a dangerous serial killer, can they unravel her secrets before she kills again?