In the mysterious Area X, there are no mutants wandering around and no treasure hunters searching for profit, nor do people bring back amazing artifacts from there. They simply disappear forever—or return, but changed in strange and terrifying ways. In yet another fruitless expedition, the director of the Southern Reach—the secret government organization studying the Area—has vanished. Now the new director must make sense of what his missing predecessor has left behind. The problem is that for an outsider, this organization proves to be a mystery no less tangled than the Area itself. Where are the research results? Why is the staff behaving so strangely? What exactly is going on here? As the new director delves into the secrets of the Southern Reach, he draws closer to a horrifying discovery…