Lost Man's Lane: A Novel

A mysterious private investigator embodies the darkness hidden within a small town in this spellbinding thriller that will “make you a Scott Carson fan for life” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Marshall Miller would’ve remembered her face even if he hadn’t seen it on a MISSING poster.

When a young woman disappears in his small town, the investigation hinges on Marshall’s haunted sighting of her, crying in the back seat of a police car driven by a cop named Maddox.

There’s only one problem: no local cop named Maddox exists.

But the speeding ticket he handed to Marshall certainly does.

Dealing with police and media is heady stuff for a teenager, the son of a single mother, but Marshall is sure he can handle it, until the shocking day when his reliability as a witness implodes. Now scorned and shamed, he finds unlikely allies as he confronts the ancient secrets behind his small town’s peaceful façade—and learns the truth about his own family.

Lost Man’s Lane is a coming-of-age tale that proves why its author has been hailed as “a master” by Stephen King who consistently offers “eerie, gripping storytelling” (Dean Koontz).

Scott Carson is the pseudonym of Michael Koryta, a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, adapted into major motion pictures, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former private investigator and reporter, his writing has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, and Dean Koontz, among many others. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, he now lives in Indiana and Maine.

ISBN: 9781982191450
Format: Hardback
Pages: 528
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: March 26, 2024

"A creepy, compelling coming-of-age story, as touching as it is terrifying.""Scary, and perfect reading pleasure.""LOST MAN'S LANE is Scott Carson's finest achievement. It's such an engaging read that is virtually turns its own pages for the reader." “LOST MAN’S LANE is masterful story-telling — a heartfelt, deeply creepy tale of lost innocence and the evil that lurks beneath even the most placid American surfaces.”


"I fell deep into this book and never wanted to come out. It'll make you a Scott Carson fan for life.""I've spent the last few nights completely enthralled by teenage private investigator Marshall Miller and his creepy coming-of-age horror story. LOST MAN'S LANE made me feel like I was 17 all over again. It's sweet, scary, nostalgic, and deeply unsettling -- and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!"“Scott Carson has done it again. LOST MAN’S LANE is a richly imagined, terrifying trip down memory lane. High school keggers and small town legends, first loves and heartbreaks, serpents and secrets — it’s all here in one action-packed story. Poignant, nostalgic, and profoundly unsettling, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Carson is a spellbinding storyteller and LOST MAN’S LANE is his best yet.” "The best Scott Carson novel yet! Horror writers are always being compared to Stephen King, quite often without the quality to back up the comparison, but here we have the real deal! In this beautifully executed coming-of-age horror, Carson weaves a tale all his own, replete with unsettling evil and the questions of love and loss, of trust and family, that plague us all. LOST MAN'S LANE creeped me out, and I loved every shiver!""With LOST MAN'S LANE, Scott Carson fuses a gothic spellbinder steeped in old-American lore with the piercing ache of a coming-of-age story, bittersweet and filled with longing. With echoes of Ray Bradbury and Peter Straub, it’s a dazzling, genuinely terrifying novel that hovers darkly in your head long after you finish."“Nobody makes you believe the unbelievable better than Scott Carson. LOST MAN'S LANE channels Stephen King’s very best.”