Personal Effects: Dark Art

Produced by entertainment company Smith & Tinker and published by St. Martin's Press, Dark Art combines the narrative experience of a traditional thriller novel with an Alternate Reality Game. Clues in the novel – and items that come with the novel, such as ID cards and photos – will propel readers into an online experience where they become protagonists themselves. Readers will learn more about the novel's story, and unearth plot twists that the book's heroes may never see.

Set in a mental institution for hopeless dead-enders, Personal Effects: Dark Art chronicles the life of Zach Taylor, a young and optimistic art therapist. Gifted at his job, he uses his patients' personal effects – the personal items cataloged during their admission to the hospital – to help decipher the secrets of their mental problems.

But Zach is soon obsessed and overwhelmed when a new patient is admitted to the facility: a man who is a suspected serial killer. But how can this man have killed a dozen people when he's blind? And how does he know how Zach will behave... before Zach himself does?

Read Zach's notes. Call the phone numbers. Explore the websites. Follow the clues...