Lawrence Darmody and his oldest friends take a trip together to temporarily escape the humdrum of their very different lives. Some of them are preoccupied by the secrets they want to bury and some of them don't fully understand the secrets they have buried deep within them.
Eddie Stubbs is a loner. But he is trying to shake that image by taking a school trip. It just so happens that the girl of his dreams is taking the same trip.
Peter Kilfedder is a veteran Detective with little time for anyone, even his own family these days.
None of them have any idea how intertwined their fates are by events that began 20 years ago.
And none of them are prepared for the deepest, darkest beasts lurking within and without...
This is the full novel from which the Birth of the Beast novellas are taken.