{"product_id":"black-lightning-isbn-9780449225042","title":"Black Lightning","description":"\u003cb\u003eJohn Saul knows how to make the blood run cold and the heart race wild with fear. Now the author of the\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestsellers \u003ci\u003eCreature\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Homing\u003c\/i\u003e delivers a chilling novel of a convicted serial killer sentenced to death—and hell-bent on revenge.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor five years Seattle journalist Anne Jeffers has pursued the horrifying story of a sadistic serial killer’s bloody reign, capture, trial, and appeal—crusading to keep the wheels of justice churning toward the electric chair. Now the day of execution has come. A convicted killer will meet his end. Anne believes her long nightmare is over. But she’s dead wrong. . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin days, a similar murder stuns the city. As the butcher stalks his next victims, creeping ever closer to her, Anne is seized by an icy unease, a haunting sense of connection to these unspeakable crimes. And, relentlessly, she hears the eerie echo of the dead man’s last words to her: “Today won’t end it. How will you feel, Anne? When I’m dead, and it all starts again, how will you feel?” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e Black Lightning,\u003c\/i\u003e John Saul strikes with a novel as electrifying as a jagged bolt from a pitch-dark sky, proving once again his inimitable genius for suspense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eBlack Lightning\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“His most effective thriller to date . . . [a] compelling read.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Electrifyingly scary.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Jose Mercury News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of Saul’s best.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eJohn Saul, the author of seventeen novels of terror and supernatural suspense, lives in the state of Washington and on the island of Maui.PROLOGUE\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Five Years Ago—\u003cbr\u003e Experiment Number Forty-Seven\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was a ballet the man had danced so many times before that the first steps had become familiar enough to be performed automatically, with little if any thought at all. If he’d been asked, he couldn’t have said exactly what it was about this particular subject that first caught his attention, what particularly had piqued his interest in including her in his study. Certainly not age—he’d never been interested in the relative youth of any of his subjects.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nor did sex matter. There were nearly as many men as women among his subjects; whatever gender imbalances existed in his study group were purely a matter of chance, and, he was certain, statistically insignificant. Not that his critics would ignore whatever imbalances existed when they began analyzing his work—he was all too aware that every possible nuance of his study would be minutely examined, that every possible interpretation, no matter how outlandish, would be applied to his choice of subjects.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But the fact was that he really hadn’t come up with any standard criteria for selecting participants in the experiments. Neither race nor gender, age nor sexual orientation, had counted.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Nor had he ever been particularly concerned about whether he invited the subject to join his study, or whether the subject was the one to make the first contact.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e His current subject had made the first contact herself, as it happened, and he had almost rejected her on the basis that she seemed somehow familiar to him, that he knew her from somewhere. Familiarity was the single grounds for automatic ineligibility for the project, for he could never be certain of his own objectivity if he had previously existing feelings for the subject, whether positive or negative.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He’d first become aware of the woman a couple of weeks ago, when he’d happened into a shop near the university for a cup of coffee. He’d briefly noticed her when he’d come in, sitting near the door alone, a copy of the Seattle Herald spread out on the table before her. He’d paid little attention to her until he bought his own coffee and settled into a chair several tables away.\u003cbr\u003e Had he subconsciously known even then that he would include her in the project? He would have to consider that.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It had been she who first smiled at him, then come over and asked if she could join him. As he recalled it now, she said something she seemed to consider witty, about them not taking up any more room on the planet than they absolutely had to, and he produced the expected smile for her. But instead of inviting her to sit down, he pleaded work, and she left.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For the next ten minutes he’d tried to figure out why she looked familiar, but it hadn’t finally come to him until he opened his own paper to the editorial section and his eye had been caught by one of the columns:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e How Much Longer? \u003cbr\u003e Police Fiddle While Seattle Dies\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Another week has passed, and the Special Task Force set up by the Seattle Police Department in cooperation with the King County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol seems no closer than ever to an arrest in connection with the series of bodies that has turned up in the foothills of the Cascades over the past five years. Indeed, thus far all the police seem to have determined is that all the victims appear to have been killed by the same person, a conclusion anyone who has seen the bodies couldn’t easily have missed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Yet when I talked to several members of the task force this week …\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It hadn’t been the story that had caught the man’s eye so much as the accompanying photograph of the column’s author.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Anne Jeffers.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e That was why the woman he’d spoken to a few minutes earlier had seemed familiar: she looked very much like the newswoman. He’d sat staring at the photograph for several seconds, considering.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The woman had been in her early forties, of medium height, with the same kind of even features reflected in the photograph. The woman’s hair had appeared to be of a similar dark shade, too, though Anne Jeffers’s was somewhat shorter.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Was it possible it had actually been Anne Jeffers he’d spoken to?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A patient man, he’d finished his coffee, refolded his paper, and gone on about his business. But he kept his eyes open, and a few days later, when he spotted the woman from the coffee shop, he realized that she was not Anne Jeffers, nor was she anyone else he knew.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Discreetly, he’d followed her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e She lived not far from the university, in an old Spanish-Moorish-style apartment building the man had always liked.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Afterward, he made a point of walking by the building every few days. He’d seen the woman several times, and nodded to her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The dance had begun.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It had gone on for several weeks, the two of them circling around each other in a strange pavane that was almost like a courtship.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They began nodding to each other, then saying hello.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He had begun to absorb the routines of her life, and found her—as he found most people—to be pathetically predictable.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Today, for instance, being a bright and cheerful Sunday, he was almost certain the woman would take lunch in a bag and go to bask in the rare warmth on the lawn of the university, where she would pretend to be reading a book while actually watching for a man—nearly any man, he had discovered—to show interest in her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Today he would be the man to show interest.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Today the dance would end.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He left his car at home that morning, taking the motor home he’d bought four years ago, when the study had commenced. Perfect for field trips, he often drove it into the mountains even on weekends when he wasn’t working on his research, parking it near any one of hundreds of babbling streams while he indulged himself in his only passion outside of his project: fly-fishing.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Today he drove the motor home up to the university, parked it in the nearly deserted depths of the cavernous garage, and locked it. Taking his own lunch and two bottles of lemon-flavored sparkling water with him, he climbed the stairs to the surface and started across the lawn toward the spot that was the woman’s favorite.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Half an hour later, after she’d consumed half the contents of the bottle of sparkling water he offered her, she frowned, then shook her head.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Something wrong?” the man asked, his gentle voice freighted with benevolent concern.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “I—I’m not sure,” the woman replied. “Suddenly I feel—” She hesitated, then stood up. “I’d better get home!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The man scrambled to his feet and began gathering both their things. “Maybe I should drive you,” he suggested.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The woman started to decline his offer, but a second later, changed her mind. He could see that the color had begun to fade from her lips.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “If you could …” she began, but then, feeling lightheaded and dizzy, her voice faded.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Gratefully, she accepted the man’s proffered arm and let him lead her down into the garage, where his motor home waited.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Even before he drove it out into the bright daylight, the woman had drifted into unconsciousness, and was now spread out on the sheet of plastic he’d placed on the floor.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He pulled out of the garage, went west two blocks, turned right up to N.E. 45th Street, and headed west to Interstate 5. Taking the highway south, he exited at Route 520, heading east toward Redmond.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e After a while he wound up into the foothills, looking for the right spot.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Somewhere off the road.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Somewhere secluded.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Somewhere near a stream, so he could do a little fishing after his work was done.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Finally he found the spot: a narrow road, one he’d used before, but not for years. A half mile through the trees and he emerged into a clearing next to a fast-moving stream. He looked around.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He was alone.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Now he began his preparations.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e First, he stripped naked, folding his clothes neatly and stowing them in the drawer beneath the queen-sized berth at the motor home’s rear.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e After pulling on a pair of rubber surgical gloves, he covered the bed with a sheet of plastic and moved the unconscious woman onto it.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He continued working with the sheets of plastic, methodically lining the entire interior of the motor home; one of his prime rules when carrying out an experiment was that nothing must be contaminated.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Finally he was ready.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Undressing the woman, he gazed at her naked body for a few moments, savoring the life that seemed to radiate from it even as she slept.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Her breasts moved rhythmically up and down as she breathed, and when he lay his fingers gently on her neck, he could feel the pounding of her pulse.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He laid out the tools he knew he would need, then picked up the instrument he’d purchased the day before for this specific experiment, and squeezed its trigger.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It squealed shrilly as its blade began to spin.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The man began his work.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The blade of the cordless saw sliced through skin and flesh, parting the woman’s sternum in a single quick cut up the center of her chest.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Setting the saw aside, the man spread her ribs apart and closed off the largest of her severed blood vessels with some of the surgical clamps he’d bought years before, when the research was still in its planning stages.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The worst of her bleeding stanched, the man slipped his fingers into the cavity within. He felt the woman’s lungs—still working strongly—and nodded in satisfaction. Once more he’d succeeded in making the primary cut so perfectly that the subject’s diaphragm remained undamaged.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He slid his fingers deeper, working them around the lungs until both hands rested against the gently moving tissue. He paused, thrilling to the sensation of life pressing against his palms.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But now the woman’s breathing was beginning to falter. Time was running short.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The experiment must begin.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e His fingers probed deeper, until at last he felt the familiar contours of a human heart. Time seemed to stand still.…\u003cbr\u003e  ","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301940809957,"sku":"NP9780449225042","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780449225042.jpg?v=1767722700","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/black-lightning-isbn-9780449225042","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}