Dark and wholly original, this startling debut describes what happens in a small American town in 1984 when the local prosecutor asks the devil to stop by.

A visitor arrives, who couldn’t look less satanic. Sal is 13 but ‘old in the soul’.

He speaks in riddles and sets the town alight with his mesmerising tales of heaven and hell; and enflames the townsfolk with his mysterious presence.

Gloriously Gothic.

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel (Scribe, £14.99) is out now.

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