One of today's most electrifying suspense novelists, New York
Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner returns with a shattering
thriller that dares to play on our deepest vulnerabilities. In this
masterful new novel, the killer may very well be the one you
sympathize with the most....

THE FIRST RULE IS NEVER BLAME THE VICTIM.

They survived what no woman should ever have to endure. Now these
three women have the means, the opportunity, and the perfect
motive. Are they trying to get away with murder--or is someone
trying to make sure that this time they don't get away at all? THE
SURVIVORS CLUB. . .that's what Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg
Pesaturo call it. They won't consider themselves victims. They are
survivors. They faced the blazing headlines and helped lead the
investigation that caught the man who changed their lives
forever.

And now that Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been
murdered, shot down outside a packed courthouse moments before his
trial was about to begin, all three women are openly ecstatic that
he's dead. They are also the prime suspects in his murder.
Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin knows all too well what can drive
even the best people to cross the line. But he has never seen a
case quite like this one. No one doubts that the murder of Eddie
Como was a professional job, especially when the gunman is killed
only blocks away from the shooting.

But questions taunt Griffin: Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como
and his killer? Could three ordinary women have been driven to do
he unthinkable? Had someone in the Survivors Club become a killer?
Griffin seeks the truth--and finds himself confronted with the
leader of the Survivors Club. Jillian Hayes is beautiful,
successful, cool as ice, and she harbors a pain that mirrors
Griffin's own. Did the horror of what happened to her push her over
the thin and desperate line that separates survival and revenge?
And if it did, could he blame her--or anyone in the Survivors Club?
Then another woman is brutally attacked.

Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, gripped in a
media and political firestorm of controversy, cover-up, and
conspiracy, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For
Griffin, this may well be the case that shatters his career. For
Jillian, the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again.
Someone is out there. Someone who wants to finish what was started.
Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors
Club.

© Copyright 2003 by Lisa Gardner. Reprinted with
permission by Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights
reserved.