Imagine a film made in black-and-white. Now imagine a novel written in black-and-white. The Rat and the Serpent is a gothic tale that follows the extraordinary fate of Ugli the cripple. Raised as a beggar in the soot-shrouded Mavrosopolis, Ugli has to scramble for scraps of food in the gutter if he is to survive. But one day his desperation and humiliation is noticed by the mysterious Zveratu, and soon he is taking his first faltering steps into the world of the citidenizens. He meets the seductive Raknia and the arrogant Atavalens; one destined to be his lover, the other his mortal enemy. But as Ugli ascends he becomes aware of a strange darkness at the heart of the city in which he lives. Slowly, he realises that the Mavrosopolis exists gloomy and forbidding around a terrible secret . . .