What Doesn't Kill Her
Ten years before the main action of Collins's by-the-numbers serial killer vs. survivor-of-his-attack thriller, a man dressed in a police uniform invaded the Westlake, Ohio, home of 16-year-old Jordan Rivera. He stabbed her parents and brother to death, forced her to pose the corpses for a photo, and raped her. He spared her life so that she could tell his story to the world. Traumatized, Jordan spends the next decade in a mental health facility, where she steadfastly refrains from engaging with others. When she sees a TV news report about another family's slaughter, she emerges from her isolation. Meanwhile, local cop Mark Pryor, a high school classmate of Jordan's who has carried a torch for her for years, suspects that a serial killer is at work. Further contrivances mark this as a lesser effort from the author of the superior Nate Heller series (Target Lancer, etc.). Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (Sept.)