The Lightning Rule: A Novel

Brett Ellen Block

Nov 2010 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

They say lightning never strikes the same spot twice. Detective Martin Emmett is about to prove the exception to the rule. It is the summer of 1967 and a heat wave is bringing Newark, New Jersey's simmering racial tensions to a boiling point. Banished to desk duty, his career on the line, Emmett is offered a chance at professional redemption if he can quickly and quietly solve the murder of a black teenage boy whose mutilated body has been found in a subway tunnel. But Emmett discovers that the teen is a victim of a sadistic predator who abducts boys to use as prey in a twisted game of cat and mouse. While the riots engulf Newark, crippling the city with chaos, Emmett must track down the killer before the next hunt begins.

About the author

Brett Ellen Block received her undergraduate degree in fine arts from the University of Michigan. She went on to earn graduate degrees at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of East Anglia's Fiction Writing Program in England. She won the Drue Heinz Literary Prize for her debut collection of short stories, Destination Known, and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She is also the author of The Grave of God's Daughter. She lives in Los Angeles.