Nate Wildenstern's brother has been killed, and the finger is pointed at him ...After nearly two years, eighteen-year-old Nate returns home to the family empire ruled by his father - the ruthless Wildenstern Patriarch. But Nate's life is soon shattered by his brother's death, and the Rules of Ascension, allowing the assassination of one male family member by another, means he's being blamed. He knows that he is not the murderer, but who is? With the aid of his troublesome sister-in-law, Daisy, and his cousin Gerald, he means to find out. But when the victims of the family's tyrannical regime choose the funeral to seek their revenge, they accidentally uncover the bodies of some ancient Wildenstern ancestors, one of whom bears a Patriarch's ring. The lives of Nate and his family are about to take a strange and horrifying turn ...

Accolades

Shortlisted for Waterstone's Children's Book Prize 2008.

Author Biography

Born in Dublin in 1973, Oisin McGann spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. Art college ruined any chance he had of getting a real job, so when he left in 1992, he set himself up as a freelance illustrator. In 1998 he moved to London, and through no fault of his own he ended up working in advertising as an art director and copy writer. After three and a half years he began to fear for his immortal soul. He returned to Ireland in the summer of 2002 much as he had left it - with no job, no home and some meagre savings. Ever the optimist, he now works once more as an illustrator and mercenary artist by day and escapist writer by night.