Willow Creek, Nebraska. A town where everyone knows everyone, where the stadium lights come on every Friday night like an altar, and where they teach the girls to smile before they teach them to speak. When Brooke Lawson, captain of the cheer squad, is found beneath the bleachers-posed upright, arms raised in a perfect V, silver tape across her mouth and a seventeen-year-old homecoming pin laid over her heart-the town tips into terror.
Sheriff Dan Harlan, haunted by the suicide of his own cheerleader sister, won't let the past climb back out of its grave. Nora Vance, the local radio host who came home to outrun her own wreckage, smells the story of her life-and the danger that rides with it. As the bodies pile up, each one staged like a grotesque routine, a secret buried since 2008 begins to surface. The killer doesn't hate these girls.
He wants to destroy what they stand for: perfection. And he isn't finished.
Willow Creek, Nebraska. A town where everyone knows everyone, where the stadium lights come on every Friday night like an altar, and where they teach the girls to smile before they teach them to speak. When Brooke Lawson, captain of the cheer squad, is found beneath the bleachers-posed upright, arms raised in a perfect V, silver tape across her mouth and a seventeen-year-old homecoming pin laid over her heart-the town tips into terror.
Sheriff Dan Harlan, haunted by the suicide of his own cheerleader sister, won't let the past climb back out of its grave. Nora Vance, the local radio host who came home to outrun her own wreckage, smells the story of her life-and the danger that rides with it. As the bodies pile up, each one staged like a grotesque routine, a secret buried since 2008 begins to surface. The killer doesn't hate these girls.
He wants to destroy what they stand for: perfection. And he isn't finished.