Right Behind You

Bestseller Gardner’s edge-of-your-seat thriller brings back law-enforcement couple Pierce Quincy and Rainie Conner, last seen in 2008’s Say Goodbye. Quincy, a retired FBI agent, and Conner, an investigative consultant for the Bakersville County (Ore.) sheriff’s department, have been fostering 13-year-old Sharlah for three years and want to adopt her. When Sharlah was five, her father fatally stabbed her mother in a drunken rage. In self-defense, her nine-year-old brother, Telly, beat their father to death with a baseball bat. In the tragedy’s aftermath, the siblings were separately fostered. Now a security camera catches 17-year-old Telly shooting a clerk and a customer to death in a gas station. Telly’s foster parents are later found slain in their home. While Quincy and Conner work on protecting Sharlah and locating Telly, Sharlah makes plans of her own. Revealing chapters from the children’s point of view show them trying to match wits with adults. Devilishly clever twists propel Gardner’s tale of family bonds fractured, mended, and sometimes destroyed. [em]Five-city author tour. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Jan.) [/em]