'What kind of a man would have his fingers tattooed that way? ... What kind of a man? What kind of a preacher?'

One of the great chase novels, The Night of the Hunter centres on the ferocious, unforgettable figure of Preacher, a psychopath who relentlessly pursues two children who may or may not know the secret of where the money from a bank raid is hidden.

Set in a brilliantly rendered Depression-era American river town, Grubb's novel is both a study of innocence and evil and a savage picture of human failings as, one by one, the adults who have it in their power to protect the children fall for Preacher's wiles.