Grant County

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation - a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later.

Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton - the town's pediatrician and medical examiner - finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy.

An apparent student suicide has brought medical examiner Sara Linton to the local college campus, along with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. But a horribly mutilated corpse yields up few answers. And a suspicious rash of subsequent "suicides" suggests that a different kind of terror is stalking the youth of Heartsdale, Georgia - a nightmare that is coming to prey on Sara Linton's loved ones.

Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus. The mutilated body provides little in the way of clues - and the college authorities are keen to avoid a scandal - but for Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, things don't add up. Two more suspicious suicides follow, and a young woman is brutally attacked. For Sara, the violence strikes far too close to home.

In Karin Slaughter's exciting new thriller, an officer is shot point-blank in the Grant County police station and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver is wounded, setting off a terrifying hostage situation with medical examiner Sara Linton at the center. Working outside the station, Lena Adams, newly reinstated to the force, and Frank Wallace, Jeffrey's second in command, must try to piece together who the shooter is and how to rescue their friends before Jeffrey dies.

The victim was buried alive in the Georgia woods, then killed in a horrifying fashion. When Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver stumble upon the body, both become consumed with finding out who killed the pretty, impeccably dressed young woman. And for Sara and Jeffrey, a harrowing journey begins, one that will test their own turbulent relationship and draw dozens of lives into the case.

Lena Adams has spent her life struggling to escape her past. She has only unhappy memories of Reece, the small town that nearly destroyed her. She's made a new life for herself as a police detective in Heartsdale, a hundred miles away. But nothing could prepare her for the violence that explodes when she is forced to return. A vicious murder leaves a young woman incinerated beyond recognition. And Lena is the only suspect.

Three and a half years ago former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton moved to Atlanta, hoping to leave her tragic past behind her. Now working as a doctor in Atlanta's Grady Hospital, she is starting to piece her life together. But when a severely wounded young woman is brought in to the emergency room, she finds herself drawn back into a world of violence and terror.