From New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles
comes his latest tour de force thriller -- an unforgettable
plunge into a world of sex, violence, marital betrayal,
medical malpractice, and Southern intrigue...all of which
takes place in the span of one furious, terrifying day.
In Third Degree, Greg Iles takes us to the idyllic
town of Athens Point, Mississippi, to probe beneath the
surface of the modern American marriage -- where the
appearance of perfection conceals a soul-searing conflict of
unnerving intensity and violent possibility. Packed with the
storytelling brilliance and twisting suspense that
mesmerized readers of True Evil, Turning Angel, and
Blood Memory, Iles's newest novel delivers a
powerful, revelatory reading experience.
Laurel Shields, thirty-five and mother of two, awakens to
find that her husband, Warren, a prominent local physician,
is not in bed with her. Creeping out to the kitchen of their
palatial home, she sees him through the doorway of his
study, wildly pulling books from the shelves. Two weeks
earlier, Warren and his partner were informed by the IRS
that their medical practice was being audited; since then
the stress on Dr. Shields has steadily ratcheted up.
But Laurel has problems of her own. Quickly returning to the
bedroom, she locks herself in the master bath, opens a home
pregnancy testing kit, and fearfully tests herself.
PREGNANT, announces the digital readout. Laurel
closes her eyes as though absorbing news of a death, then
quickly hides the evidence. She is not sure who the father
is. Summoning all her strength, she walks into the kitchen
to carry out the acting performance of her life.
Later that morning, Laurel returns home and is surprised to
find her husband's car still parked in the driveway. The
house has a strange stillness to it. In the den, she finds
Warren sitting on the sofa in the same clothes he wore the
previous day. His face is pale and unshaven, his eyes hollow
with fear. Then, in come the children, innocent of it all....
So begins the most terrifying day in the history of a
marriage, one that in less than five hours will make the
Shields house the vortex of a nerve-wracking siege. While a
nervous ring of armed men awaits its chance to storm the
suburban home, inside the house the clock ticks down on
exposure of Laurel's terrible secret. But she is not alone
in her lies. Before the siege is through, this terrifying
drama will pull in desperate characters from the town and
drive Dr. Shields, his wife, and her lover to the very brink
of sanity and survival.
Rich with Southern atmosphere, and perceptively laced with
the tacit deceptions and psychological cracks found in
nearly all marriages, Third Degree delivers another
knockout, page-turning read from Greg Iles, "the poster boy
of southern gothic thrillers" (Kirkus Reviews), and
proves again that Iles is today's unparalleled master of the
suspense novel.
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