<p>“Breathless tension!” raved the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>. “One of [the year’s] most remarkable achievements,” crowed <i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i>. Karin Slaughter dazzled readers and critics alike with <i>Triptych,</i> her <i>New York Times</i> best-selling suspense novel set in metropolitan Atlanta. Now the number-one internationally best-selling author returns to the damaged landscape she knows so well in a bold new novel - at once a powder keg of suspense, a gritty portrait of a cop’s life, and a searing exploration of a shocking crime and its aftermath....</p> <p>With its gracious homes and tree-lined streets, Ansley Park is one of Atlanta’s most desirable neighborhoods. But in one gleaming mansion, in a teenager’s lavish bedroom, a girl has been savagely murdered. And in the hallway, her horrified mother stands amid shattered glass, having killed her daughter’s attacker with her bare hands.</p> <p>Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is here only to do a political favor; the murder site belongs to the Atlanta police. But Trent soon sees something the cops are missing, something in the trail of blood, in a matrix of forensic evidence, and in the eyes of the shell-shocked mother. Within minutes, Trent is taking over the case - and adding another one to it. He is sure another teenage girl is missing and that a killer is on the loose.</p> <p>Armed with only fleeting clues, teamed with a female cop who has her own personal reasons for hating him, Trent has enemies all around him - and a gnawing feeling that this case, which started in the best of homes, is cutting quick and deep through the ruins of perfect lives broken wide open: where human demons emerge with a vengeance.</p>