"A narrative pull as strong as a Mississippi River current." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles returns with an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and devastating secrets... Marshall McEwan is one of the most successful journalists in Washington, D.C. But as he sees more and more acclaim in print and on television, Marshall discovers that his father is terminally ill, and he must go back to his childhood home--a place he vowed he would never return. Bienville, Mississippi, is no longer the city Marshall remembers. His family''s 150-year-old newspaper is failing, and Jet, the love of his youth, has married into the family of Max Matheson, one of a dozen powerful patriarchs who rule the town through the exclusive Bienville Poker Club. To Marshall''s surprise, the Poker Club has offered economic salvation to this community, in the form of a billion-dollar Chinese paper mill. But on the verge of the deal''s consummation, two deaths rock Bienville to its core, threatening far more than the city''s future. Joining forces with his former lover, Marshall begins digging for the truth. But he and Jet soon discover that the soil of Mississippi is a minefield where explosive secrets can be far more destructive than injustice. "Iles...has made Mississippi his own in the same way that James Lee Burke has claimed Cajun country and Michael Connelly has remapped contemporary Los Angeles.... They will be talking about this one for quite a while." -- Booklist ("Starred Review")
The #1 New York Times bestselling author''s critically acclaimed novel for readers of all ages, now in a special trade paperback edition. . . . “One of the most truly frightening books ever written.”-New York Times Behind a locked door, a young girl discovers a passage to a world eerily similar yet darkly different from her own in this remarkable fable from the acclaimed modern master.
"When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you just can't put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional." --STEPHEN KING NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly - Washington Post - AARP - Newsweek - Dallas Morning News - South Florida Sun-Sentinel - Chicago Public Library - Real Book Spy - CrimeReads - Litreactor - Library Journal - LitHub - Booklist Winner of the Barry, Macavity , and Anthony Awards, the Hammett Prize, the Left Coast Crime "Lefty" Award for Best Mystery Novel, and the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction Novel! Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America--a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone. Frank Guidry's luck has finally run out. A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans' mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it's his turn--he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Within hours of JFK's murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he's next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate--a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish. Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don't stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car. For her, it's more than a car-- it's an escape. She's on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who's a hopeless drunk. It's an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope--and find each other on the way. Charlotte sees that he's strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she's smart and funny. He learns that's she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can't know that he's desperate to leave his old one behind. Another rule--fugitives shouldn't fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn't just a road, it's a trail, and Guidry's ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn't want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time. Everyone's expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can't throw away the woman he's come to love. And it might get them both killed.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her and The Silent Wife , an electrifying standalone thriller. Karin Slaughter is back with her first nail-biting standalone since 2018!
In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard takes on the story of a family from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and its costly aftermath--to illuminate how the mistakes of parents are passed down through generations to fester, or to be healed. After falling in love in the last years of the 1970s, Eleanor and Cam follow their dream of raising three children on a New Hampshire farm. Theirs is a seemingly idyllic life of summer softball games and Labor Day cookouts, snow days and skating on the pond. But when a tragic accident permanently injures the family''s youngest child, Eleanor blames Cam. Her inability to forgive him leads to a devastating betrayal: an affair with the family babysitter that brings about the end of their marriage. Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family--and the many others who make up their world--make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. As we follow the family from the days of illegal abortion and the draft through the early computer age, the Challenger explosion, the AIDS epidemic, the early awakenings of the #MeToo era, and beyond?through the gender transition of one of the children and another''s choice to cease communication with her mother?we witness a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past, and find redemption in the face of unanticipated disaster. With endearingly flawed characters and a keen eye for detail, Joyce Maynard transforms the territory she knows best--home, family, parenthood, love, and loss--into the stuff of a page-turning thriller. In this achingly beautiful novel, she reminds us how great sorrow and great joy may coexist--and frequently do.
Instant New York Times Bestseller Best of 2017 - included on best-of lists by the New York Times, NPR, Barnes & Noble, Publisher's Weekly, LitHub, BookPage, Booklist , TheRealBookSpy.com, the Financial Times (UK) and the Daily Mail (UK) " The Force is mesmerizing, a triumph. Think The Godfather , only with cops. It's that good." -- Stephen King The acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cartel --voted one of the Best Books of the Year by more than sixty publications, including the New York Times --makes his William Morrow debut with a cinematic epic as explosive, powerful, and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire. Our ends know our beginnings, but the reverse isn't true . . . All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop. He is "the King of Manhattan North," a, highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of "Da Force." Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest, an elite special unit given unrestricted authority to wage war on gangs, drugs and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he's spent on the Job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He's done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean--including Malone himself. What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city's history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all. Based on years of research inside the NYPD, this is the great cop novel of our time and a book only Don Winslow could write: a haunting and heartbreaking story of greed and violence, inequality and race, crime and injustice, retribution and redemption that reveals the seemingly insurmountable tensions between the police and the diverse citizens they serve. A searing portrait of a city and a courageous, heroic, and deeply flawed man who stands at the edge of its abyss, The Force is a masterpiece of urban living full of shocking and surprising twists, leavened by flashes of dark humor, a morally complex and utterly riveting dissection of modern American society and the controversial issues confronting and dividing us today.
Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture! USA Today Bestseller Debut author Sally Thorne bursts on the scene with a hilarious and sexy workplace comedy all about that thin, fine line between hate and love. Nemesis (n.) 1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome. 2) A person''s undoing 3) Joshua Templeman Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman hate each other. Not dislike. Not begrudgingly tolerate. Hate. And they have no problem displaying their feelings through a series of ritualistic passive aggressive maneuvers as they sit across from each other, executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. Lucy can''t understand Joshua''s joyless, uptight, meticulous approach to his job. Joshua is clearly baffled by Lucy''s overly bright clothes, quirkiness, and Pollyanna attitude. Now up for the same promotion, their battle of wills has come to a head and Lucy refuses to back down when their latest game could cost her her dream job...But the tension between Lucy and Joshua has also reached its boiling point, and Lucy is discovering that maybe she doesn''t hate Joshua. And maybe, he doesn''t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.
The classic collaboration from the internationally bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, now a Prime original series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. " Good Omens . . . is something like what would have happened if Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and Don DeLillo had collaborated. Lots of literary inventiveness in the plotting and chunks of very good writing and characterization. It''s a wow. It would make one hell of a movie. Or a heavenly one. Take your pick."-- Washington Post According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter , Witch (the world''s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon--both of whom have lived amongst Earth''s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle--are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .
For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven , a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague--a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice. Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects--a pig--develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
Age of Miracles meets The Immortalists in this spirit-lifting, high-concept blockbuster debut set in a world where people can find out how much time they have left to live. Would you choose to find out the length of your life? One spring day, small wooden boxes arrive for every person, all over the world, from suburban doorsteps to desert tents. All the boxes feature the same inscription, "The measure of your life lies within," and vary in only two ways: the name of the recipient and the length of the single string inside. Instantly, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy, first to ascertain their origin and meaning, and then to confront the truth of the strings. Told through multiple perspectives, The Measure introduces an unforgettable cast of characters whose lives weave and interlock with one another upon the arrival of the strings: a doctor who cannot save himself, a couple who thought they didn''t have to rush, best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, and a politician whose string becomes a powder keg in an increasingly turbulent world. As society divides itself, the truth has the power to unravel their long-held beliefs and relationships all while forging new alliances and philosophies about our time on this earth and our place in the community. Both heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious meditation on life, family, and society that challenges us to consider the best way to live life to the fullest.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide... Jess needs a fresh start. She''s broke and alone, and she''s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn''t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn''t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up - to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? - he''s not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother''s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben''s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it''s starting to look like it''s Ben''s future that''s in question. The socialite - The nice guy - The alcoholic - The girl on the verge - The concierge Everyone''s a neighbor. Everyone''s a suspect. And everyone knows something they''re not telling.
A scintillating, gorgeously written historical novel about a mother and a daughter in eighteenth-century France, beginning with decadence and palace intrigue at Versailles and ending in an explosive new era of revolution. During the reign of Louis XV, impoverished but lovely teenage girls from all over France are sent to a discreet villa in the town of Versailles. Overseen by the King''s favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour, they will be trained as potential courtesans for the King. When the time is right, each girl is smuggled into the palace of Versailles, with its legendary Hall of Mirrors. There they meet a mysterious but splendidly dressed man who they''re told is merely a Polish count, a cousin of the Queen. Living an indulgent life of silk gowns, delicious meals, and soft beds, the students at this "school of mirrors" rarely ask questions, and when Louis tires of them, they are married off to minor aristocrats or allowed to retire to one of the more luxurious nunneries. Beautiful and canny Veronique arrives at the school of mirrors and quickly becomes a favorite of the King. But when she discovers her lover''s true identity, she is whisked away, sent to give birth to a daughter in secret, and then to marry a wealthy Breton merchant. There is no return to the School of Mirrors. This is also the story of the King''s daughter by Veronique--Marie-Louise. Well-provided for in a comfortable home, Marie-Louise has never known her mother, let alone her father. Capable and intelligent, she discovers a passion for healing and science, and becomes an accredited midwife, one of the few reputable careers for women like her. But eventually Veronique comes back into her daughter''s life, bringing with her the secret of Marie-Louise''s birth. But the new King--Louis XVI--is teetering on his throne and it''s a volatile time in France...and those with royal relatives must mind their step very carefully.
Detective Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, risk life and limb to solve a pair of brutal murders that may be tied to a crime from more than twenty years ago in this intense and addictive mystery from New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman. On a quiet suburban street in upstate Greenbury, New York, the brutally beaten body of a young man is discovered in the woods adjacent to an empty vacation home. Twenty-six-year-old Brady Neil a resident of the neighboring town of Hamilton, had no criminal record, few friends, worked full-time, and attended community college. But as Detective Peter Decker learns, the clean-cut kid is linked to the criminal world. When Brady was a baby, his father, Brandon Gratz, was convicted of robbing and killing the owners of a local jewelry store. While Gratz and his partner, Kyle Masterson, admitted to the robbery, they swore they left the owners, Glen and Lydia Levine, very much alive. The experienced detective knows there's more to this homicide case than the records show. As he digs into Gratz's past, Decker begins to suspect that the son's murder may be connected to the father's sins. Before he can put together the pieces, Decker finds out that one of Brady Neil's friends, Joseph Boch--aka Boxer--has gone missing. Heading to Boch's house with his temporary new partner, Hamilton PD cop Lenora Baccus, they discover a bloodbath. Who would savagely kill two innocent men--and why? Finding the answers will require all of Decker's skill and knowledge, the help of his fellow Greenbury detectives, Tyler McAdams and Kevin Butterfield, and information gleaned from his wife Rina's behind the scenes investigation to put all the pieces of this deadly puzzle together . . . and see justice done.
"If you''re into mystery thrillers, then you''re into Karin Slaughter." --THESKIMM He watches. He waits. He takes. Who will be next . . . THE SILENT WIFE Investigating the killing of a prisoner during a riot inside a state penitentiary, GBI investigator Will Trent is confronted with disturbing information. One of the inmates claims that he is innocent of a brutal attack for which he has always been the prime suspect. The man insists that he was framed by a corrupt law enforcement team led by Jeffrey Tolliver and that the real culprit is still out there--a serial killer who has systematically been preying on women across the state for years. If Will reopens the investigation and implicates the dead police officer with a hero''s reputation of wrongdoing, the opportunistic convict is willing to provide the information GBI needs about the riot murder. Only days ago, another young woman was viciously murdered in a state park in northern Georgia. Is it a fluke, or could there be a serial killer on the loose? As Will Trent digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the cold case in order to find the answer. Yet nearly a decade has passed--time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear, and lies to become truth. But Will can''t crack either mystery without the help of the one person he doesn''t want involved: his girlfriend and Jeffrey Tolliver''s widow, medical examiner Sara Linton. When the past and present begin to collide, Will realizes that everything he values is at stake . . .
Now a Netflix film starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, and Kristin Scott Thomas "Last Night I Dreamt I went to Manderley Again..." With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten--a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house''s current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim''s first wife--the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca. This special edition of Rebecca includes excerpts from Daphne du Maurier''s The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories , an essay on the real Manderley, du Maurier''s original epilogue to the book, and more. A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
"Swanson rips us from one startling plot twist to the next... A true tour de force." --Lisa Gardner "Fiendish good fun." --Anthony Horowitz From the hugely talented author of Before She Knew Him comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction's most ingenious murders. Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre's most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack--which he titled "Eight Perfect Murders"--chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie's A. B. C. Murders , Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train , Ira Levin's Death Trap , A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery , Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought , James M. Cain's Double Indemnity , John D. Macdonald's The Drowner , and Donna Tartt's A Secret History . But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She's looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal's old list. And the FBI agent isn't the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. There is killer is out there, watching his every move--a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal's personal history, especially the secrets he's never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife. To protect himself, Mal begins looking into possible suspects . . . and sees a killer in everyone around him. But Mal doesn't count on the investigation leaving a trail of death in its wake. Suddenly, a series of shocking twists leaves more victims dead--and the noose around Mal's neck grows so tight he might never escape.
Readers of Heather Morris''s The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen''s Gambit won''t want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice. Maria is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Captured by the Gestapo she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, while her family is sent to their deaths. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Fritzsch, intends to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of utilizing her skills, he has every intention of killing her. Befriended by a Catholic priest, Maria attempts to overcome her grief and see the value in survival. Literally playing for her life through four grueling years, her strategy is simple: Live. Fight. Survive. By cleverly provoking Fritzsch''s volatile nature in front of his superiors, Maria intends to orchestrate his downfall. Only then will she have a chance to evade the fate awaiting her and see him brought to justice. As she carries out her plan and the war nears its end, she discovers Fritzsch has survived. And so Maria, vowing still to avenge the murder of her family, challenges her former nemesis to one final game, certain to end in life or death, in failure or justice. If Maria can bear to face Fritzsch--and her past--one last time.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER - USA TODAY BESTSELLER Straight from the mind of #1 New York Times bestselling author of NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette and 99 Stories I Could Tell Nathan W. Pyle, Strange Planet is an adorable and profound universe in pink, blue, green, and purple, based on the phenomenally popular Instagram of the same name! Strange Planet covers a full life cycle of the planet's inhabitants, including milestones such as: The Emergence Day Being Gains a Sibling The Being Family Attains a Beast The Formal Education of a Being Celebration of Special Days Being Begins a Vocation The Beings at Home Health Status of a Being The Hobbies of a Being The Extended Family of the Being The Being Reflects on Life While Watching the Planet Rotate With dozens of never-before-seen illustrations in addition to old favorites, this book offers a sweet and hilarious look at a distant world not all that unlike our own. I feel more attractive. Honestly, you are. It's the star damage. I CRAVE STAR DAMAGE.
The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling phenomenon Strange Planet , featuring more hilarious and poignant adventures from the fascinating inhabitants of Nathan W. Pyle's colorful world. In this eagerly awaited sequel, Nathan takes us back to his charming and instantly recognizable planet colored in bright pinks, blues, greens, and purples, providing more escapades, jokes, and p h r a s e s. Nathan mixes his most popular Instagram comics with more than thirty original works created exclusively for this second volume to explore four major topics: traditions, nature, emotions , and knowledge . He inducts new and longtime fans into a strangely familiar world and its culture, from "cohesion" (marriage) to "mild poison" (alcohol) to the full lyrics to "The Small Eight-Legged Creature" (sung to the tune of The Itsy-Bitsy Spider ). Bright, colorful, and whimsical--yet charmingly familiar-- Stranger Planet is out-of-this-world fun.
Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning... Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she''s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community''s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block--her neighbor Theo. But Sydney and Theo''s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised. When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other--or themselves--long enough to find out before they too disappear?
In the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life--from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow . Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he''s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn''t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn''t end like this, not for him. Through a kaleidoscope of women--a mother, a sister, a homicide detective--we learn the story of Ansel''s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel''s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister''s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake. Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.