The Competition by Marcia Clark

[WaltBristow]

What if a couple kids decided to repeat some of the worst mass shootings in the United States – and then do them one better? Starting with a Columbine-style school shooting at a Los Angeles area high school and continuing with an Aurora-style theater shooting, author Marcia Clark takes you for a roller-coaster ride that just doesn’t stop. Just as you think L.A. County's Special Trials Prosecutor Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey Keller have narrowed in on the two shooters, all bets are off. The real killers may still be out there, preparing for their next rampage.

This, the fourth in the Rachel Knight series, is every bit as good – probably better – than the others. Clark, a former prosecutor who led the team in the O.J Simpson trial, brings a professional realism to this thriller that will keep you engaged from the first page to the last.

The story starts with a high school pep rally turned blood bath. When two bodies are found in the school library with weapons nearby, we think Knight and Keller have the killers. But just a few inconsistencies in the scene suggest otherwise. So, who are these two and what role, if any, did they play in the carnage? Were they part of the killing spree? Or victims? When someone starts dropping clues that the killing spree is far from over, Knight and Keller begin a cat and mouse chase to find the true killers. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, Clark rips the ground from underneath you and sends you down another frightening path.

Two forensic scientists are brought into to help identify the personality of a psychopathic killer. Their discussion of that personality is chilling; you’ll find yourself thinking of people who have entered the stage that is your life and who were downright creepy. Could one of your friends become a mass-murderer?

The action is fast. The dialogue crisp and believable. Written as if you were looking over the shoulder of the characters, you are quickly drawn in to their lives. You will feel like you’re watching a carefully edited documentary that lets you experience the chase for the killers and that lets you get into the minds and emotions of the characters. You’ll feel the gut-wrenching emotions of parents who discover the child they thought they knew was really a person they could not know. And you’ll find yourself so caught up in the details that Clark lays out for you that you’ll wonder if you are reading a novel or a work of non-fiction.

This is a five-star work. Buy it. Check it out from your library. Ask a friend for her copy. But read it.

Review based on a pre-release copy from NetGalley