The restless rats return in James Herbert’s Lair, the second horror novel in the Rats trilogy. The “Outbreak” was a tragedy London thought it had buried. But deep within the ancient, shadowed groves of Epping Forest, a new terror is feeding. Investigator Lucas Pender – haunted by the family he lost to the first wave of mutants – recognizes the chilling signs: mutilated livestock and an eerie, unnatural silence in the woods. These aren’t mere scavengers; they are immense, intelligent predators with a reawakened lust for human blood. Led by a grotesque, two-headed master and a cunning, scarred survivor, the pack begins a coordinated massacre that defies every known poison. As the forest becomes a military slaughterhouse, Pender must plunge into the subterranean darkness to confront a biological horror faster and hungrier than anything humanity has ever faced. The natural order is shifting – and we are no longer at the top. Praise for James Herbert:‘The Rats is splatterpunk deluxe’Stephen King‘Lean, mean, and nasty as punk’Grady Hendrix‘A one-off; a true horror original’Peter James