One of the most gifted novelists of his generation (Time) gives us a mystery that is as ambitious as it is intriguing, an investigation of a young woman’s violent extinction that also traces her construction of a new and oddly innocent self.

She wakes in an emergency room in a London hospital, to a voice that tells her: You’re on your own now. Take care. Be good. She has no knowledge of her name, her past, or even her species. It takes her a while to realize that she is human-and that the beings who threaten, befriend, and violate her are other people. Some of whom seem to know all about her.