Kisscut

Synopsis

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.

what Seemed At First To Be A Horrific But Individual Catastrophe Proves To Have Wider Implications. The Autopsy Reveals Evidence Of Long-term Abuse, Of Ritualistic Self -mutilation, But When Sara And Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver Start To Investigate, They Are Frustrated At Every Turn.

the Children Surrounding The Victim Close Ranks. The Families Turn Their Backs. Then A Young Girl Is Abducted, And It Becomes Clear That The First Death Is Linked To An Even More Brutal Crime, One Far More Shocking Than Anyone Could Have Imagined. Meanwhile, Detective Lena Adams, Still Recovering From Her Sister's Death And Her Own Brutal Attack, Finds Herself Drawn To A Young Man Who Might Hold The Answers. But Unless Lena, Sara, And Jeffrey Can Uncover The Deadly Secrets The Children Hide, It's Going To Happen Again . . .

publishers Weekly

aptly Named Novelist Slaughter (blindsighted) Brings Back Her Horribly Scarred Cast Of Grant County, Ga., Cops And Coroners For More Murder, Mayhem And Horrific Sexual Violence. Pathologist Sara Linton, Who Has Been Dating Her Ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, Is Witness To Tolliver's Fatal Shooting Of A Teenage Girl When The Girl Threatens To Shoot A 16-year-old Boy In A Standoff Outside The Local Skating Rink. A Search Of The Rink Turns Up A Dismembered Fetus In A Toilet; Sara's Postmortem Reveals The Girl Had A Long History Of Abuse Most Gruesomely, Her Vagina Is Sewn Shut. Working The Case Alongside Jeffrey Is Det. Lena Adams, Herself The Victim Of A Recent Abduction And Rape, Who Is Also Trying, With Difficulty, To Come To Terms With The Death Of Her Gay Sister. Questioning Mark, The Boy Who Was Almost Shot, Lena Gradually Uncovers A True Horror Show Of Pedophilia, Incest And Kiddie Porn, An Inverted World Where Parents Rape Their Children Before Peddling Them To Strangers For Money And Blackmail. Slaughter Adheres To The Traditional Mystery Format, But Turns Up The Shock Factor Tenfold, Demonstrating That The Deepest Depravity Can Be Business As Usual In Small Towns As Well As Big Cities. The Undertone Of Violence Is Pervasive, Even At Quiet Moments (lena Was Able To Pull Her Hand Away, But Not Before She Felt Grace's Thumb Brush Across The Scar.... The Touch Was Tender, Almost Sexual, And Lena Could See The Charge Grace Got Out Of It), Amplifying Slaughter's Equation Of Intimacy With Menace And Placing Her Squarely In The Ranks Of Cornwell And Reichs. (sept.) Forecast: Slaughter's Much-praised First Novel, Blindsighted, Put Her On The Thriller Map. Kisscut, A Featured Alternate Selection Of The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild And Bomc, Could Make Her A Bestseller. 10-city Author Tour. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.