Murder comes to a remote fishing village. No one can imagine who he is or where he came from when the killer is caught and beaten unconscious. When he wakes, he can't remember who he is or why he is there, sending the village into chaos and uncertainty. After an age-old ritual, the killer is handed over to a young orphaned woman living on the edge of the village. Taska Valimer is deemed his keeper for a lifetime. As secrets are revealed and the villagers begin to fear the killer will turn on them all, humanity, trust, and the darkest of human nature converge. All the villagers must face the coming darkness and with it comes treachery, deceit, intrigue, and hope. "A novel with the rarefied atmosphere of ancestral myth, The Staff unfolds in a time and place that feels ancient and simultaneously apart from history: a northern seaside village where the air holds the electric charge of prophetic meaning. Samul has written a dark, tension-filled allegory of crime, punishment, and transcendence that will appeal to fans of Hawthorne, Kafka, and Shirley Jackson." -- Tim Weed author of Will Poole's Island and A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing. "In the tradition of Orwell and Huxley and Dostoevsky, Ron Samul has imagined a world in stunning detail where justice and human dignity are casualties of the fears that inhabit us and determine the contours of our lives. It is a terrifying world that exists beyond our reference points and yet it feels oddly familiar because the people we come to meet there, though strangers to us, give us an unexpected glimpse of ourselves." -- Don J. Snyder author of Of Time and Memory and Fallen Angel. "An intriguing, skillfully constructed plot about the darker side of human nature. This novel features an intriguing and original main character." -- The Book Life Prize.
