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There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs by Jason Pargin book coverOut in 17 days
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There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs

by Jason Pargin · John Dies at the End, Book 5

NOV3Tue
Publishes Tuesday 3 November 2026Hardcover · St. Martin's Press · 400 pagesSee everything out in November 2026 →
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About the book

From the publisher

New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin's nightmarishly hilarious John Dies at the End series is back to entertain all who enter. And seriously, you can just start here.

A massive, sticky pile of severed human limbs suddenly appears in the parking lot of a vacant department store in a desolate small town. A set of footprints are found trailing away in the snow, as if a single pair of bare feet had wandered off the pile. If this wasn’t puzzling enough, the cops soon find that no one seems to be missing the limbs. Some of the fingerprints on the severed arms belong to living people with all their appendages intact, others match no one on file, the rest of the limbs somehow have no prints at all.

This sounds like a case for local weirdos John, David and Amy, partly because the cops don’t want the headache and partly because David’s own arm is in the pile, despite an identical copy of it still being attached to his body. When a mysterious man then shows up at David’s home claiming to be in pursuit of an entity he calls “the Penetrator,” it seems clear the trio are in for a long weekend.

In addition to stopping whatever this nonsense is, the gang will also have to quell the panicked headlines that threaten to ensue, which could prompt the feds to try to just wipe the whole town off the map (again). As such, the first thing you need to know is that, contrary to whatever ugly rumors you may have heard, there are no giant crabs in this novel.

Description supplied by the publisher.

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The series in order

John Dies at the End

This is Book 5 of 6. Every book in the series has its own page.

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