Martin Just wakes up one morning after what feels like, and might actually be, a centuries-long sleep with two new innate pieces of knowledge: Humanity is a virus destined to destroy all existence. And that he is the Cure.

Martin, his wife, and his two children are the only Black family on their neighborhood block in the Hollywood hills of Los Angeles. Suddenly, Martin is both father and Antibody, husband and Cure, occasionally slipping into an alternate consciousness – equipped with unprecedented physical strength – to violently defend them.

The family is stalked by Tor Waxman – the pale, white-haired embodiment of death who wears a dapper suit, carries a cane, and seeks to destroy all life with his fatal touch. Martin must convince his family of the danger and get them to engage with him in a battle beyond all imagining. Mosley effortlessly marries the sublime and the pedestrian: from monumental battles with truly universal stakes to the banality of standoffs with neighborhood police patrols, and the quotidian yet joyfully intimate conversations the family shares at home while gathered for dinner.

With his boundless talent and skilled range, Walter Mosley brings an ethereal, incisive look at a primal struggle driven by the spirit of the universe, in the vein of masters Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, and Jeff VanderMeer. Expansive and innovative, sexy and satirical, Touched brilliantly imagines the ways in which human life and technological innovation threaten existence itself.

Praise for Touched:

“It’s like nothing else you’ve ever read, and it’s so, so good.”—Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

“Known for writing iconic works, including Devil in a Blue Dress, Mosley offers a new novel that is an expansive dystopian fantasy that is equally sexy and incisive.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Thriller-Master Mosley’s sci-fi tale will knock your socks off.”—People Magazine

“A fast, fascinating addition to the author’s already fantastic oeuvre . . . Mosley has been delivering superb crime fiction for decades, so it comes as no surprise that this detour into speculative fiction would also be great.”—Locus Magazine

“This is one you won’t want to put down.”—The Root

“A bizarre yet enjoyable romp of science fiction that will make you think.”—WBUR

“Equal parts body horror and necromancy, the book has cinematic fast cuts and an explosive pace that make it read like a Black Mirror episode set against the Hollywood Hills . . . Fast-moving action and jaw-dropping twists move this slim volume along at a dizzying rate.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A weird, philosophical book that packs a lot into less than 200 pages, exploring racial inequality, an unjust justice system, family relationships, and expansive ideas about the nature of humanity.”—Booklist

“One of the prolific sci-fi writers of our time returns with a new fight between good and evil.”—Ebony

Praise for Walter Mosley:

“Walter Mosley is best known as one of contemporary literature’s pre-eminent crime novelists, but he’s actually four or five different writers rolled into one . . . He’s an altogether thornier, more idiosyncratic writer than readers may know, an inveterate investigator and chronicler of his own heart, mind and soul.”—New York Times