Heart-stopping suspense&, cutting-edge forensic detail, flawless storytelling — these are the hallmarks of Karin Slaughter's novels. From Faithless to Triptych, Slaughter's gritty, gripping thrillers have dazzled critics, who crown her "one of the best crime novelists in America." Now the #1 internationally bestselling author returns to rural Grant County, Georgia, in a riveting tale of murder in a small town, a troubled woman cop at the center of it all, and the shocking secrets that keep a killer just beyond reach.

In a stifling jail cell in a hardscrabble Georgia town, Detective Lena Adams sits in stubborn silence: bruised, angry, and the only suspect in a horrific murder that left a woman incinerated beyond recognition. A hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver has gotten the call that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey's wife, pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, has little patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, struggling to pick up the pieces of a shattered career, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena's knight in shining armor. Sara cannot guess that within days she herself will be at the center of a bizarre and murderous case.

For Lena has fled back to the place where she grew up hard, careening back through the shadows of her past and into a shocking underground world of bigotry and rage. The man who raised her is slowly killing himself with drugs. The man who beguiled — and beat — her is reaching out from prison. And now only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies, betrayal, and brutality that has trapped her — as this powerhouse of a novel races toward its shattering climax — and a final, unforgettable twist.

"At the start of bestseller Slaughter's bone-chilling sixth thriller in her Grant County, Ga., crime series (after 2005's Faithless), Dr. Sara Linton, the county's resident pediatrician and medical examiner, is mired in a devastating lawsuit, accused by grieving parents of indirectly causing the death of their terminally ill son. Then Sara and her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, must travel to rural Reese, Ga., where Lena Adams, Jeffrey's often reckless detective, has been injured in an explosion that killed a local woman. Lena's mysterious escape from the hospital plunges her, Sara and Jeffrey into a dangerous web of meth trafficking, white supremacy groups and long-buried family secrets. Expertly shifting back and forth in both time and point of view, Slaughter builds the suspense to a perfect crescendo, connecting every loose plot strand in a devastating and unforgettable climax. With methamphetamine use on the rise in the country, Slaughter's unflinching portrayal of lives ruined by the drug make her latest a timely and unsettling read." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"'At the start of bestseller Slaughter's bone-chilling sixth thriller in her Grant County, Ga., crime series (after 2005's Faithless), Dr. Sara Linton, the county's resident pediatrician and medical examiner, is mired in a devastating lawsuit, accused by grieving parents of indirectly causing the death of their terminally ill son. Then Sara and her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, must travel to rural Reese, Ga., where Lena Adams, Jeffrey's often reckless detective, has been injured in an explosion that killed a local woman. Lena's mysterious escape from the hospital plunges her, Sara and Jeffrey into a dangerous web of meth trafficking, white supremacy groups and long-buried family secrets. Expertly shifting back and forth in both time and point of view, Slaughter builds the suspense to a perfect crescendo, connecting every loose plot strand in a devastating and unforgettable climax. With methamphetamine use on the rise in the country, Slaughter's unflinching portrayal of lives ruined by the drug make her latest a timely and unsettling read.' Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)"

"Offers both wrenching emotional highs and lows and a gripping plot....A shocker of an ending." Booklist

“Offers both wrenching emotional highs and lows and a gripping plot.... A shocker of an ending.”Booklist

With over 13 million copies of her books sold in twenty-two countries, #1 internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter delivers “crime fiction at its finest.” Now she returns to Grant county, Georgia where the lightning-fast plot, vivid forensic detail, and heart-stopping suspense will thrust readers into the darkest corners of their own imaginations—and push Slaughter to the top of the national bestseller lists.

Sara Linton—resident medical examiner/pediatrician in Grant County, Georgia,—has plenty of hardship to deal with, including defending herself in a heartbreaking malpractice suit. So when her husband, Police chief Jeffery Tolliver, learns that his friend and coworker detective Lena Adams has been arrested for murder and needs Sara’s help, she is not sure she can handle the pressure of it all. But soon Sara an Jeffery are sitting through evidence, peeling back the layers of a mystery that grows darker by the day—until an intricate web of betrayal and vengeance begins to unravel. And suddenly the lives of Sara, Lena, and Jeffery are hanging by the slenderest of threads.

Karin Slaughter is The New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Triptych, Faithless, A Faint Cold Fear which was named an International Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Indelible, Kisscut, and Blindsighted; she contributed to and edited Like a Charm. She is a native of Georgia, where she currently lives and is working on her next novel, Sleeping Dogs.