Aud (it rhymes with "shroud" ) Torvingen is six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. She can restore a log cabin with antique tools or put a man in a coma with her bare hands. As imagined by Nicola Griffith in this ferocious masterpiece of literary noir, Aud is a hero who combines the tortured complexity with moral authority.

In the aftermath of her lover's murder, the last thing a grieving Aud wants is another case. Against her better judgment she agrees to track down an old friend's runaway fiancée--and finds herself up against both a sociopath so artful that the law can't touch him, and the terrible specters of loss and guilt. As stylish as this year's Prada and as arresting as a razor at the throat, Stay places Nicola Griffith in the first rank of new-wave crime writers.