The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner

From the Publisher

An ongoing string of high-profile and very public murder-suicides has San Francisco even more rattled than a string of recent earthquakes: A flamboyant fashion designer burns to death, clutching the body of his murdered lover. A superstar 49er jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. And most shocking of all, a U.S. attorney launches her BMW off a highway overpass, killing herself and three others.

Enter forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett, hired by the SFPD to cut open not the victim’s body, but the victim’s life. Jo’s job is to complete the psychological autopsy, shedding light on the circumstances of any equivocal death. Soon she makes a shocking discovery: All the suicides belonged to something called the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of A-listers with nothing but money and plenty to hide. As the deaths continue, Jo delves into the disturbing motives behind this shadowy group - until she receives a letter that contains a dark secret Jo thought she’d left deep in her past, a secret that ends with the most chilling words of all: “Welcome to the Dirty Secrets Club.”

Praise for Meg Gardiner
“If you read Sue Grafton, Lee Child, Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, or Nelson DeMille, you’re going to think Meg Gardiner is a gift from heaven.” - Stephen King

“A winner in every way. The Dirty Secrets Club is nuanced and layered - and a harrowing thriller. . . . Meg Gardiner makes every one of her characters leap alive off the page.” - Jeffery Deaver

“Meg Gardiner is an astonishing writer, and The Dirty Secrets Club is a humdinger of a thriller, with shocks and twists galore. I couldn’tturn the pages fast enough.” - Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen

Stephen King is absolutely right. Meg Gardiner is an astonishing writer, and The Dirty Secrets Club is a humdinger of a thriller, with shocks and twists galore. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Stephen King

If you read Sue Grafton, Lee Child, Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, or Nelson DeMille, you're going to think Meg Gardiner is a gift from heaven....the next suspense superstar.

Jeffery Deaver

A winner in every way. The Dirty Secrets Club is nuanced and layered— and a harrowing thriller that chews up the streets of San Francisco from the high-rises to the Tenderloin. Meg Gardiner makes every one of her characters leap alive off the page, and I personally am in love with the most compelling of them all, Jo Beckett—the psychiatrist who analyzes dead people for the cops and who's willing to trade her cell phone for a cup of coffee. (Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author of The Sleeping Doll)

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)

Stacy Alesi - Library Journal

As a forensic psychiatrist, Jo Beckett determines whether murder or suicide has been committed in questionable deaths. The San Francisco Police Department needs her services after a string of suspicious suicides. The cops are concerned that more suicides are imminent, and they're right-bodies start piling up, and the pressure is on Beckett to figure out what's going on and how to stop it. Luckily, she's a tenacious one, the cop assigned to the case equally so, but, nonetheless, things get really tense when a rising star in the district attorney's office is the newest victim. Beckett determines that all the suicides belong to the Dirty Secrets Club, whose members have shameful events in their past. The tension mounts as Beckett tries to figure out who will be next, but it's not an easy puzzle to piece together, especially when her own past is flung in her face. Stephen King brought Gardiner, an American living and published in Britain, to the attention of U.S. readers; her U.S. debut is highly recommended for larger fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ3/1/08; see the interview with Gardiner on p. 38.-Ed.]

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