In addition to his prolific output with The Mountain Goats (who released their most recent album, Dark in Here, in June), frontman John Darnielle is a published novelist. His first novel, Wolf in White Van, came out in 2014, and his second, Universal Harvester, came out in 2017. He's now announced his third, Devil House. It's due out on January 25, 2022, and available for pre-order in regular and signed editions. Here's the synopsis:

Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him.

Now, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success―and movie adaptation―to his name, along with a series of subsequent lesser efforts that have paid the bills but not much more. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: To move into the house―what the locals call “The Devil House”―in which a briefly notorious pair of murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected 1980s teens. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected―back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.

John Darnielle has long been known to millions of Mountain Goats fans as a storyteller of uncanny sensitivity and mythic power. In Universal Harvester and Wolf in White Van before it, he has proven himself a novelist of the highest order. With Devil House, Darnielle rises above with a novel that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a gripping tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.

The cover art hasn't been revealed yet, but stay tuned. UPDATE: The cover art is here, and you can see it above. Dare I say that the Stephen King vibes intensify?

Meanwhile, The Mountain Goats are in the midst of a tour, which runs through October.