Oyster McLellen keeps his family afloat by running small-time scams on tourists in Hyde Park under the watchful eye of his fellow gang, controlled by crime boss Big Mickey. As long as they keep to their territory and avoid the cops, things seem to move as they should. Three years ago, Oyster’s father left for one last score and never came back. Torn between believing the man he idolized met a foul end or simply abandoned them, Oyster holds onto all of his father’s books about the unsolved and the uncanny. Inside these books, he finds drawings of fantastic patterns and mystical designs. To honor his father, Oyster gets these designs tattooed onto his body.Things start to take a strange turn. He finds himself tumbling into the Thames and communicating with a strange entity under the water. A random older woman with a performer’s flair, Marya Petrovna, rescues him with her fancy car and elusive explanations. When arrested on suspicion of a con, the cops magically find nothing to charge Oyster with. He decides to focus on practical matters and keep moving up in ranks with the gang. When a money drop for Big Mickey fails disastrously, there’s nothing for Oyster to do but run after the thieves and get the money back. One moment he’s chasing what looks like a group of Girl Guides (for the US, this would be more like Girl Scouts) across South London, and the next he’s awake on a beach surrounded by the detritus of office furniture. This new world, Greater London, is built from the remains of multiple versions of London. Oyster has to quickly figure out his allegiances to keep all possible Londons from falling and maybe find out what happened to his father in the process.
The Lighthouse at the End of the World is now available from Titan Books.
