Claire is waiting for her husband, Paul at the bar of a restaurant. They are celebrating the fact that Claire has been released from serving her time with an ankle monitor: her punishment for  getting into an altercation with one of the women in her tennis club. This brush with the criminal courts has been trying for Claire and Paul, upsetting their posh lifestyle in the suburbs of Atlanta. When Paul comes they have a drink and then decide to skip dinner and go home, when suddenly they are accosted by a man with a knife in the alleyway beside the restaurant. The hold up turns deadly and Paul dies of a stab wound right in front of her eyes.

This is the second time someone has left Claire so abruptly. The first time was when her sister, Julia, disappeared at age 19, leaving a void in their family that they never quite recovered from and creating an estrangement between Claire  and her other sister, Lydia. Reeling from the shock and feeling disembodied, Claire tries to go through the motions of making funeral arrangements and tying up the loose ends Paul has left behind. But as she sorts through Paul’s papers she begins to realize that her marriage and the life they enjoyed was not all that it seemed. Feeling out of her element and needing help to sort things through, Claire reaches out to her sister, Lydia to help her figure out the trail that Paul has left behind.

This is a disturbing and scary book! If books could be rated this one should be rated “read at your own risk” because of the harrowing exploration of a depraved serial killer’s mind. Slaughter is a good writer and she has written one of my favorite series, but this stand alone book was hard to read and hard to put down. Slaughter has created very nuanced characters, and Claire and Lydia’s sibling rivalry and the emotional toll that the loss of their older sister has had on their lives is told deftly and compassionately. Her description of the serial killer’s mindset and motivations are some of the best I have ever read, but were awful and emotionally exhausting to read. Slaughter has done something pretty amazing, but it is almost too real and too awful to enjoy.

Brenda’s Rating: *** (3 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to? Only the brave!

Book Study Worthy: yes

Read in ebook format.