The Competition (Rachel Knight Series #4)

by Marcia Clark

Overview

In Marcia Clark's most electrifying thriller yet, Los Angeles District Attorney Rachel Knight investigates a horrifying high school massacre.

A Columbine-style shooting at a high school in the San Fernando Valley has left a community shaken to its core. Two students are identified as the killers. Both are dead, believed to have committed a mutual suicide.

In the aftermath of the shooting, LA Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight teams up with her best girlfriend, LAPD detective Bailey Keller. As Rachel and Bailey interview students at the high school, they realize that the facts don't add up. Could it be that the students suspected of being the shooters are actually victims? And if so, does that mean that the real killers are still on the loose?

A dramatic leap forward in Marcia Clark's highly acclaimed Rachel Knight series, The Competition is an unforgettable story that will stay with readers long after the last page has been turned.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316220989
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	07/08/2014
Series:	Rachel Knight Series , #4
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	257,196
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Marcia Clark began practicing law as a criminal defense attorney. She became a prosecutor in the L.A. District Attorney's Office in 1981, and spent ten years in the Special Trials Unit where she handled a number of high profile cases prior to the O.J. Simpson case, including the prosecution of stalker/murderer Robert Bardo.

In May of 1997, her book on the Simpson case, Without a Doubt, was published and quickly rose to #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, and Publisher's Weekly bestsellers lists.

Marcia has published three novels which feature Los Angeles Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight: Guilt by Association, Guilt by Degrees, and Killer Ambition. TNT has optioned the books for a drama series. Marcia is attached as an executive producer.

Editorial Reviews

05/26/2014
What could be worse than a Columbine-style school shooting? Rachel Knight finds out in Clark’s ticking time bomb of a thriller, the fourth in her series featuring the L.A. deputy DA (after 2013’s Blind Ambition). Called to suburban Fairmont High, the scene of the crime, by best friend Bailey Keller, “a top-notch detective in the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD,” Knight finds that her presence may be far more than a formality when forensic evidence suggests that one or more of the mass murderers might have escaped. From there, the two women embark on a pedal-to-the-metal race to solve the case before there’s another massacre, all while trying to keep their efforts under the radar to avoid spooking their quarry or panicking the public. That a lone DA/detective team would have so much autonomy in such a high-profile investigation stretches credulity, but the twisty plot and dynamic duo make for a suspenseful, if sobering, page-turner. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Clark handles sometimes painfully raw scenes with great sensitivity and skillfully works in material about what makes a mass murderer, as she ratchets up suspense to a deadly conclusion. Her fourth legal thriller featuring Knight is another tour de force."—Booklist (starred review)

"What could be worse than a Columbine- style school shooting? Rachel Knight finds out in Clark's ticking time bomb of a thriller, the fourth in her series featuring the L.A. deputy DA.... The twisty plot and dynamic duo make for a suspenseful, if sobering, page-turner."—Publishers Weekly

"With THE COMPETITION, Marcia Clark has upped the ante yet again, reaching new creative heights. Though the subject matter is both dark and disturbing, her sensitive handling of the material and the informative nature of the narrative allows the book to transcend traditional thriller fare. Pulse-pounding, poignant, and provocative, this is a story that will engage your heart and your mind. It's also proof beyond a reasonable doubt that fiction can help us to understand reality."—John Valeri, Examiner

"A real page-turner."—Mary Lignor, Suspense Magazine

From the Publisher

Narrator January LaVoy does justice to this fourth legal thriller written by former LA Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark. Assistant Prosecutor Rachel Knight teams up with Detective Bailey Keller to investigate a Columbine-like massacre of students and teachers at a Valley high school. At first, it appears that the two masked killers committed suicide in the school library, but on further investigation, they conclude that the perps are still at large. As the team eyeballs suspect after suspect, the story twists and turns, and the plot becomes much more involved than one would expect. LaVoy is a multifaceted narrator. Her voices are clear and realistic. She’s quick and glib and gives real personalities to the two investigators. This reviewer was inspired to backtrack to the first three books in the series. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2014 - AudioFile

2014-06-16
Ready for a fictionalized account of a mass shooting in a high school? Well, Clark is, though she comes a cropper in her attempt to rip another novel from headlines as painful as they are ubiquitous.At first, the massacre at Fairmont High seems to have followed a familiar script. The two masked gunmen, who started their shooting spree at a pep rally in the gym, roamed the halls, ducked into classrooms, murdered some 30 schoolmates and wounded many others, and ended up in the library, where their own bodies were found, balaclavas tossed aside, in an apparent mutual suicide. Unfortunately, the coroner tells LA Special Crimes prosecutor Rachel Knight and her buddy Detective Bailey Keller of the LAPD (Killer Ambition, 2013, etc.), the corpses weren’t actually those of the killers, who remain at large. Confronted by a murderous pair obviously inspired by the massacre at Columbine High but clearly determined to surpass it, Rachel and Bailey can think of nothing better to do than start interviewing teachers, administrators and students, angering the shocked, defensive parents of anyone they even suggest might be involved. Meanwhile, the killers take their act to other venues and write Rachel taunting letters that sound exactly like the work of a high school student. The result is to invoke the horror of Columbine and other recent mass shootings while insisting that the perps, who clearly believe they’re brilliant, come across as merely narcissistic, immature and hateful. Nor does it speak very highly of Rachel and Bailey that every suspect they think might be one of the shooters promptly ends up dead-end dead.An all-too-timely tale that makes you long for the day it’ll be outdated. Just the thing for readers whose appetites for stories of mass shootings haven’t been sated by the daily news.

Kirkus Reviews