The Scarred Man — Andrew Klavan

A ghost story forces a man to confront the darkest secret of his pastChristmas is lonely for a man with no family, and Mike North is grateful when his boss invites him to spend the holiday at his cabin upstate. But as a blizzard descends and conversation dries up, Mike regrets leaving New York City. Only the arrival of Susannah, his boss’s daughter, saves him from going mad with boredom. She is quick-witted and beautiful, a perfect antidote to snow-bound tedium, and he begins to fall in love. For Christmas night entertainment, Mike invents a ghost story. It goes all right until Susannah starts to scream. Something in his half-baked melodrama about a Chicago serial killer haunted by a man with a scarred face has touched a nerve. Unknowingly, Mike described a scene that matches Susannah’s nightmares. Soon, what had been a dream begins to intrude into reality. To understand her terror, Mike digs into his own memory, hoping to unearth the secret that gave birth to the scarred man.