Where the Dead Wait

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes tells the haunting story of William Day, a man who should be celebrated as an acclaimed Arctic explorer. However, after a failed expedition to find the fabled Open Polar Sea, where his men only survived by eating their comrades, he returned in disgrace—a cannibal, a murderer.

Thirteen years later, Day's second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same treacherous waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission into the frozen wastes becomes an uncanny journey into his own past, Day must face up to the things he’s done.

Aboard the ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition and Stevens’s wife, a spiritualist whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Following a trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, their search becomes more and more unnerving. It becomes clear that the restless dead are never far behind.