The Purification Ceremony

An LA Times Best Book of the Year

The product of a long line of hunters, shamans, and healers, Diana Jackman grew up surrounded by wilderness. A natural-born tracker, she and seven other hunters have gathered in the remote and treacherous snow-covered tundra of northern British Columbia in pursuit of white-tail deer. And while the group may be isolated, they are not alone.

Deep in the woods, a vicious force watches, waits, and stalks its targets.

When the hunters become the hunted, Diana will learn—for the first time in her life—what it’s like to be prey. In the blinding white wilderness of the Canadian winter, one by one, the members of her crew are stalked by a ruthlessly efficient hunter. Diana soon realizes that her only options are to kill or be killed—and she’ll have to draw from all the knowledge and skill in her arsenal to survive the predator lurking in the trees...

Finalist for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Novel

"Outstanding. A real old-fashioned thriller.”—Los Angeles Times

“Superbly written. A remarkable book.”—London Literary Review

Native American Diana Jackman learned to track deer as a child from her shaman father. To shake off the depression of his recent suicide, Diana leads a group of rich hunters on a trip into British Columbia after whitetail deer--only to discover that someone is hunting the hunters. When two members of the group are killed and gutted, it's up to Diana to use her skills and her anger to track down a crafty, crazed murderer. Mark Sullivan's descriptions of the stark landscape and the details of the hunt add greatly to the book's growing terror. His past thrillers, The Fall Lineand Hard News, are available in paperback.