What if the kids no one believed in were the ones who could save them all?
When Valley Ridge’s star pitcher, Alex Trent, throws a no-hitter and vanishes, a small Virginia mountain town learns the dark can reach even its coziest corners. Two boys who never quite fit in may be the only ones who can see what’s really out there in the woods.
Alex isn’t the first. Something is moving through the woods around Valley Ridge, and it’s like nothing the world has ever encountered. A brilliant, unhinged virologist made it. He set it loose on the town.
Two teenagers the town has always overlooked are drawn in. Wyatt Turner has bones that have broken more times than he can count, and a telekinetic power he can’t always control. Tommy Copeland lost his sight, yet he sees the world like no one else can. They call themselves the Outcasts.
Something has drawn them together, along with an aging police chief hiding a secret of his own. What it is, and why it chose them, is the secret at the heart of Valley Ridge.
The Outcasts is a supernatural thriller about belonging. It moves like a mystery. Its weight comes from the bond between two boys who were never supposed to matter.
"Be warned, this thriller will hold you by the throat until the very last page has been read."
- Matt Eversmann, co-author of Walk in My Combat Boots and Rocket's Red Glare, with James Patterson
"If Stephen King had decided to write Salem's Lot or It as a thriller instead of horror, the result would be Michael Murray's The Outcasts."
- Linda Lowen, National Book Critics Circle member, Reedsy Discovery
