It is said that Hood waits at the end of every plot, every scheme, each grandiose ambition. But this time it is different: this time the Lord of Death is there at the beginning...Darujhistan swelters in the summer heat and seethes with portents, rumours and whispers. Strangers have arrived, a murderer is abroad, past-tyrannies are stirring and assassins seem to be targeting the owners of K'rul's Bar.

For the rotund, waistcoat-clad man knows such events will be dwarfed by what is about to happen: for in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds. Far away, in Black Coral, the ruling Tiste Andii appear oblivious to the threat posed by the fast-growing cult of the Redeemer - an honourable, one-mortal man who seems powerless against the twisted vision of his followers. So Hood waits at the beginning of a conspiracy that will shake the cosmos, but at its end there is another: Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, has come to right an ancient and terrible wrong...