Triptych » (Reprint)

Karin Slaughter is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including Beyond Reach and A Faint Cold Fear, which was named an International Book of the Month Club selection; she contributed to and edited Like a Charm. She is a native of Georgia, where she currently lives and is working on her next novel, which Delacorte Press will publish in 2010.

TRIPTYCH, Slaughter's brilliantly manipulative stand-alone will thrust readers onto the razorsharpedge between truth and innocence....

For Atlanta detective Michael Ormewood, the investigation into the sadistic murder of a local woman provides a welcome escape from an unhappy marriage and crushing guilt over the near-fatal shooting of his partner. But for John Shelley, an ex-con left with nothing but the certainty of his own innocence, a nightmare is about to begin. And the shocking consequences will leave readers gasping for breath.

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Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Slaughter departs from her Grant County crime series (Faithless, etc.) with a stand-alone thriller notable mainly for a jolting mid-book twist similar to one Ira Levin used with more subtlety in A Kiss Before Dying. The case of a prostitute's brutal murder provides a welcome break for Michael Ormewood, a cynical, world-weary Atlanta cop weighed down by dealing with the city's underclass and the heartbreak of a mentally impaired son. Since the victim's tongue was severed, linking the crime to several other recent outrages, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation intervenes. Suspicions focus on a recently paroled sex offender, John Shelley, who viciously butchered a neighbor more than a decade earlier. Slaughter unexpectedly switches the narrative's perspective, but the shock value garnered by the plot twist isn't matched by the predictable denouement. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.