by Keith Rosson
First published 2025
Portland, Oregon, 1975. Sleet glazes the streets and neon bleeds into puddles. Duane Minor tends bar, stays off the bottle, and tries to patch together a life after Vietnam. His wife Heidi is home. His thirteen-year-old niece Julia is in his care. It isn't easy, but it holds together. Then John Varley walks in. Varley sleeps under loose soil by day and grows new teeth when the moon rises. When Minor gets in his way, Varley answers by killing Heidi. Minor is left with guilt he can't put down. Julia is left with rage she won't let go. The two of them, uncle and niece, are now a family built entirely around one purpose: find Varley and end him. They push out of Portland and across the Pacific Northwest, through grimy back alleys, empty highways, and snow-hammered plains. Along the way they collide with undead children, men who cast silver bullets, and a loose brotherhood of broken souls drawn to Varley's violence. Everyone wants something. Not everyone survives the wanting. Coffin Moon tracks what grief does to people when it curdles into the need for blood, and whether anything human survives that transformation.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, horror, thriller, dark
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotionally-intense, gritty, noir, violent
Tropes: found-family, grief-driven-narrative, revenge-quest, supernatural-antagonist
Setting: Portland, Oregon, Pacific Northwest
Period: 1975
320 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, murder