The Killing Lessons

Book excerpt: “Shockingly good writing . . . It’s impossible not to be swept away by its propulsive momentum. . . . peer into the depths of . . . many richly developed characters” —The New York Times Book Review When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper’s isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it’s the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it’s just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done. For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims—women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them—has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she’s losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens. But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn’t quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena’s ten-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more dangerous than what she’s running from. “Brilliant.” —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times–bestselling author of The Skin Collector and Solitude Creek “Compelling . . . graphic and disturbing.” —Associated Press “The Killing Lessons is state of the art in the ever-darkening serial-killer genre.” —The Washington Post “[An] exceptional police thriller.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Unbelievably good . . . this one has it all.” —Lee Child, New York Times–bestselling author of Personal “A powerhouse of a thriller.” —Lisa Gardner, New York Times–bestselling author of Fear Nothing