Killer View

May 19, 2008
At the start of bestseller Pearson's tension-filled sequel to Killer Weekend
, a member of Blaine County sheriff Walt Fleming's search and rescue team is shot dead while looking for a missing skier during a snowstorm in Idaho. Soon after this tragedy, Walt's best friend, veterinarian Mark Aker, disappears; someone sexually assaults Aker's assistant; unexplained illnesses strike a nearby water-bottling facility; and hundreds of livestock die mysteriously. Walt realizes almost too late that the perplexing events are all tangentially tied to a masterfully planned domestic terrorist attack—and he could have a front-row seat at a Ruby Ridge–like showdown. The conflict between the two worlds Walt serves, “the obscenely affluent residents of Ketchum/Sun Valley and the locals who provided services for them,” provides an ideal backdrop. Pearson's relentless sense of pacing and serpentine plot will have readers furiously turning pages until the end. Author tour.

August 25, 2008
Pearson returns to his favorite protagonist as Sun Valley Sheriff Walt Fleming must race against the clock to uncover a volatile biohazard operation and head the search for his best friend who’s disappeared. Christopher Lane reads with a firm, unwavering voice that captures the heightened tension in Pearson’s prose without sounding too urgent or manufactured. Lane’s slightly underplayed tone is fairly straightforward, but his characters are steeped in reality and, more importantly in a commercial thriller such as this, believability. Lane’s reading does the story justice, managing to draw listeners into the mystery and set their pulses racing with every twist and turn. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, May 19).