The Kill Clause: A Novel - Hardcover

Hurwitz, Gregg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060530383 ISBN 13: 9780060530389

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

Synopsis

A riveting and explosive novel, The Kill Clause is a brilliantly inventive tour de force by a powerful new master of suspense.

Tim Rackley is a dangerous man of honor, a deputy U.S. marshal who is very good at his job -- until everything he believes in is shattered by the brutal murder of his own daughter.

Betrayed by an imperfect judicial system, Rackley watches helplessly as the killer walks free on a legal technicality. Devastated, furious, and burning with a righteous need for vengeance, he is suddenly forced to explore his own deadly options -- a quest that leads him into a shadowy no-man's-land between justice and the law ... and into the welcoming fold of "the Commission."

A vigilante group made up of people like him -- relentless streetwise operators who have each lost a loved one to violent crime -- the Commission confronts the failings of a system that sets predators loose to hunt again, cleaning up society's "mistakes" covertly, efficiently, and permanently. But as he is dragged deeper into a deadly morass of hidden agendas and murderous justice, Tim Rackley discovers that playing God is an excruciating and fearsome task. When his new secret life starts coming unwound at an alarming speed, he is suddenly caught in the most terrifying struggle he has ever faced -- a desperate battle to save his marriage, his career, his life, his soul ... and everything left that's worth fighting for.

About this title

Review:

The Kill Clause's opening pages will knot the stomach of even the most seasoned crime reader. U.S. Marshall Tim Rackley is expecting his daughter home for her seventh birthday party. Instead he finds a fellow cop at his door, bearing the news that little Ginny has been savagely dismembered, her remains recovered in a nearby creek. Only an hour or so later, reeling with shock and grief, Rackley learns that the perpetrator has been caught--and that some fellow cops have arranged a little one-on-one meeting for him at an isolated shack, complete with an untraceable gun. Rackley arrives, faces this monster, and...

But that would be giving too much away. Suffice it to say that this powerful opening launches a killer thriller, rich in both adrenaline-pumping action and thought-provoking issues of vigilantism, power, and the moral dilemmas of those sworn to uphold the law. Hurwitz's prose is muscular yet intelligent; he draws characters well, and he unrolls action scenes with amazing vividness (as well as treating us to lots of fascinating lore about lock picking, identity theft, and cell-phone technology). Occasionally his plot twists verge on the outlandish, and a few characters seem to exist only to speechify on a certain point of view. But these are minor flaws in this fine, intense, often un-put-downable tale. --Nicholas H. Allison

About the Author:

Gregg Hurwitz is the critically acclaimed author of The Tower, Minutes to Burn, Do No Harm, The Kill Clause, The Program, and Troubleshooter. He holds a B.A. in English and psychology from Harvard University and a master's degree from Trinity College, Oxford University. He lives in Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060530383
• ISBN 13: 9780060530389
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400