A fantasy common by the author of The House with a Clock in Its Walls-basis for the Jack Dark movie-and ‘a writer who knows what wizardry is all about’ (Ursula K. Le Guin).

A richly imaginative story of wizards stymied by a power beyond their control, A Face in the Frost combines the thrills of a horror novel using the inventiveness of fairy tale-inspired dream.

Prospero, a high, skinny misfit of a wizard, lives in the South Kingdom-a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all approximately The Face in the Frost loosely loyal to 1 figurehead king. Together with his necromancer friend Roger Bacon, that has been on a quest to discover a mystical publication, Prospero must flee his home to flee ominous pursuers. Thus begins an adventure that will business lead him to a grove where his older rival, Melichus, is falsely rumored to be buried and to a less-than-hospitable inn in the city of Five Dials-and eventually into a harmful battle with origins in a magical glass paperweight.

With a unique mixture of humor and darkness, it continues to be probably one of the most beloved tales from the Edgar Award-nominated author also known for the long-running Lewis Barnavelt series.