2003 Harper Torch Paperback edition of Kisscut by Karin Slaughter 436 pages from the backcover: Sara Linton, pediatrician and medical examiner in Heartdale, Georgia, knows only too well the horrors that can hide behind closed doors in a small community. But when a Saturday night argument between teenagers at the local skating rink leads to death – a subsequent autopsy reveals evidence of ritualistic self-mutilation and long-term abuse – she realizes that true evil is closer than she imagined. Joining with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, and Detective Lean Adams, still traumatized by her brush with a maniac, in an investigation that is frustrated at every turn – by the cold silence the families and the children surrounding the slain girl – Sara begins to peel back the many layers of an inhuman outrage that goes far beyond mere murder.