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**With this breakout novel, the meg gardiner fan club is growing...** A string of high-profile murder-suicides has San Francisco more rattled than the string of recent earthquakes. Hired by the SFPD to shed light on the victims' lives, forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett makes a shocking discovery: all the suicides belonged to a group of A-listers with lots of money and plenty to hide. And soon Jo finds herself trapped in a nightmare from her past when she gets invited to join the club... ** ### From Publishers Weekly SFPD forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett is smart, dogged and filled with guilt for failing to save her husband's life after a helicopter crash. One thing she isn't is constantly angry, but which nonetheless is the mood reader Susan Ericksen evokes from word one. Possibly attempting to play up the novel's edgier aspects—a couple of nasty villains are murdering unpleasant and elitist club members—she doesn't merely read the story, she almost snarls it. While this is a bit grating for much of the thriller, it is not completely inappropriate, as it turns out. At the end, a violent earthquake, followed by a grim, relentless attack by the killers, ratchets up the suspense. As Beckett gets in touch with her inner Rambo, Ericksen's acid-tinged delivery suddenly works just fine. *A Dutton hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 24). (July)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist *Starred Review* San Francisco forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett doesn’t cut open victims’ bodies. She dissects their lives. It’s her professional duty to determine why the dead get dead. This time around, Beckett just might be in over her head. Residents of San Francisco, already edgy from recent earthquake tremors, have become further unhinged by a series of provocative—and very public—murder-suicides. They’re tied to the Dirty Secrets Club, a group that promises anonymity to high-profile citizens aching to confess their sins. U.S. Attorney Callie Harding was the driving force behind the club until the night she drove her BMW off a city overpass, ending her life and those of three others. The word dirty was scrawled in red lipstick across her upper thigh, a clue that ultimately leads Beckett and diminutive SFPD detective Amy Tang to a sadistic psychopath with vengeance on his mind. Beckett and Tang are close to collaring the culprit when Jo receives a threatening letter detailing a dark secret of her own. This is the U.S. debut for Gardiner, an American who makes her home in London. Stephen King has raved about her in print, and she proves more than worthy of that praise in this twister of a tale teeming with thrills and chills. --Allison Block