The eighth book in Erikson's acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen fantasy sequence
It  is said that Hood waits at the end of every plot, every scheme, each  grandiose ambition. But this time it is different: this time the Lord of  Death is there at the beginning...
Darujhistan swelters in the  summer heat and seethes with portents, rumours and whispers. Strangers  have arrived, a murderer is abroad, past-tyrannies are stirring and  assassins seem to be targeting the owners of K'rul's Bar. For the  rotund, waistcoat-clad man knows such events will be dwarfed by what is  about to happen: for in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds.
Far  away, in Black Coral, the ruling Tiste Andii appear oblivious to the  threat posed by the fast-growing cult of the Redeemer - an honourable,  once-mortal man who seems powerless against the twisted vision of his  followers. 
So Hood waits at the beginning of a conspiracy that will  shake the cosmos, but at its end there is another: Anomander Rake, Son  of Darkness, has come to right an ancient and terrible wrong...