The Devil's Footprints

A novel of mysterious beauty, The Devil's Footprints explores the elemental forces of everyday life: love, fear, grief, and the hope of redemption.Michael Gardiner has lived in Coldhaven all his life yet still feels like an outsider. Married but distant from his wife, he discovers that a school friend, Moira Birnie, has killed herself and her two sons by setting their car ablaze. However, she spared her fourteen-year-old daughter, Hazel. As teenagers, Michael and Moira had a brief romance, yet more troubling is the fact that Michael was responsible for the death of Moira's brother, the town bully. In the wake of this most recent tragedy, Michael becomes obsessed with Hazel, and she convinces him to take her away from the village and her abusive father, with devastating consequences.

John Burnside has published in the UK five works of fiction and eleven collections of poetry, including The Asylum Dance, which won the 2000 Whitbread Poetry Award, and The Light Trap, which was short-listed for the 2002 T.S. Eliot Prize. His memoir, A Lie About My Father, was published in 2006 in the UK to enormous critical acclaim.