NORWAY'S NATIONAL BESTSELLER. RIGHTS SOLD TO 12 COUNTRIES. Have you ever shed your skin? "Original, poignant, tender and terrifying at the same time, this novel is ambitious and hypnotically readable." — Chris Whitaker, author of the international bestseller “We Begin at the End” This is my story. My history. It is twisted and intertwined like the coils of a giant snake... I am a python named Nero. Once upon a time, I was taken in by a warm woman named Liv. She fell in love with me. She fed me living creatures. Living with her, I began to understand the language of people and got used to warm blood. And all this time I was waiting for real prey. And I dreamed of only one thing - to swallow a Warm woman, to absorb her into myself... The small Norwegian town of Kristiansund. Mariam Lind goes shopping with her eleven-year-old daughter. After a sudden quarrel, she leaves, thinking that the girl will get home on her own... but she disappears without a trace. And now Mariam cannot clearly explain to the police why that day, instead of just returning home, she drove a car many kilometers from the place where her daughter disappeared... This is a story about how people can be snakes. And, most importantly, how they can become one...

“High aim, 100% hit on target. Thanks to compelling, more or less cliché-free prose and an exquisite sense of composition, Silja Ullstein has managed to write a truly outstanding thriller." — Aftenposten “The best Norwegian debut thriller in years.” — Adresseavisa “Unbearably moving... deeply original... I predict that Silje Ullstein has a great writing career ahead of her.” — Dagbladet “This is a dark, gripping novel; there is nothing in it that would come to your mind. In short, a very good thriller." — Aftonbladet