Work Your Fingers to the Bone.

A Magnus Protocol novel by Christopher Ruz

WORK YOUR FINGERS TO THE BONE is the second in a multi-book deal between Rusty Quill and Random House Worlds, part of Penguin Random House, available for Pre-order now!

A 3D mock-up of a book named "Work your fingers to the bone" by Christopher Ruz. The cover features a red coloured illustration of a man holding up a large slab of stone representing Sisyphus.

The book explores everyone’s favourite terrible Hedge Fund, Elric Capital. This is a place that makes its investors and partners millions by betting on the weird, the spooky, the esoteric. Making money at Elric is high-risk, high-reward, and often comes with a body count.

This novel, is set alongside events of The Magnus Protocol podcast, is written by Christopher Ruz.

WORK YOUR FINGERS TO THE BONE will be published on JULY 13, 2027, and is available for pre-order wherever books are sold and in the US, UK, and Commonwealth at the links below. The novel will be published in a hardcover print edition, an ebook, and audiobook versions.

Where to order

Order WORK YOUR FINGERS TO THE BONE from your local bookshop, or at the links below:

Description

An ambitious hedge fund employee takes increasingly extreme steps to climb the corporate ladder in this chilling workplace horror novel set in the eldritch Manchester of The Magnus Protocol.

When back-office analyst Theodore Baker breaks into the safe of a recently deceased and notoriously “lucky” senior associate, he expects to find something that will give him an advantage at the fund. Blackmail. Insider records. He’d even take a rabbit’s foot. Whatever secret leverage helped a man who couldn’t remember his own PIN make millions off apparently instinctual short sells.

Instead, he finds a Gotcha: a digital-pet pedometer toy from a simpler time, when kids still played outside, and a career in finance meant stability instead of ever-imminent corporate restructuring. Between an office in turmoil, an exec determined to see Theo fired, and a Gotcha hungry for a few thousand steps a day, Theo’s priorities are clear.

A nice, long walk sounds like exactly what he needs.

And with each step he’s willing to take, the grass around Theo seems to get a little greener. His hit rate is impeccable. His arbitrages, pure. His number goes up, and up, and up. Sure, tragedy seems to pop up in his path, but the world has always had its nightmares. The only difference is that now Theo can use them to his advantage.

What could be the harm in that?

Meet the Author

Christopher Ruz fell in love with dark fiction when a worn copy of Pet Cemetery caught his eye at a local flea market. He bought it with his pocket money and hid it under his bed so his parents wouldn’t see. He was just eight years old and had no idea what he was getting into. Poor kid. He has written and published across genres as diverse as horror, epic fantasy, science fiction, and children’s choose-your-own-adventure books. WORK YOUR FINGERS TO THE BONE is his first novel from Penguin Random House, and he hopes you absolutely bloody loved it. When not writing fiction, Christopher Ruz has worked as a teacher, designer, magazine editor, ghostwriter for business leaders, and one-time stuntman (don’t ask). He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

New to Magnus?

The Magnus Archives is a multi-award-winning horror fiction podcast. Newly appointed Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, Jonathan Sims is determined to do a good job. His predecessor has left the Archives in a disorganised mess and the Head of the Institute has chosen John to rectify this.

The Magnus Institute is a London-based organisation dedicated to research into the eldritch, esoteric and the weird and contained within the Archives are statements that document terrifying supernatural experiences. As John continues to file these statements they begin to form a picture that is truly horrifying.

As you look into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back…

Then on March 25th 2021 after 5 years and 200 episodes The Magnus Archives ended and The Magnus Archives podcast feed went quiet until It returned with The Magnus Protocol the official sidequel on January 18th 2024.

In the world of The Magnus Protocol, The Magnus Institute was once an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal, based out of Manchester, England. It burned to the ground in 1999. There were no survivors. Now, almost 25 years later, Alice and Sam, a pair of low-level civil service workers at the underfunded Office of Incident Assessment and Response, have stumbled across its legacy. A legacy that will put them in grave danger.

Intrigued? You can listen to The Magnus Archives and The Magnus Protocol wherever you find podcasts, or check out the first episode of The Magnus Protocol below.