David Ellis’s Line of Vision won the 2002 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author Marty Kalish is a young man suffocating in the heat of an affair with a married woman named Rachel. When Rachel’s husband disappears one night, Marty is one of the first to be questioned. With few likely suspects, the police arrest him for murder. We know Marty was outside their home that night. We know he has a motive. We know he’s guilty of something. But is it murder? Everything we have learned—about Marty as a man, his affair with Rachel, and the night in question—comes from Marty himself. But as the trial unfolds to a jaw-dropping conclusion, we learn that there is more to the truth than one man’s narrow line of vision. "The best suspense novel I've read in a while...surprising." —James Patterson "Wicked...A twisty spellbinding story." —Publishers Weekly David Ellis is a judge and a #1 New York Times -bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of eleven novels of crime fiction, as well as nine books co-authored with James Patterson. In December, 2014, Dave was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children. ONE Something is wrong with this picture. The winds on November 18 are unusually strong for this time of year, even by Midwestern standards, carrying mist and some stray leaves in the night air. It doesn't make my journey up the three acres of the Reinardts' backyard any easier. The ground is hard, but still damp from today's rain. My feet keep slipping on the blanket of wet leaves. I silently curse the Midwestern weather, the Indian summer that provides us these leaves that should have disappeared weeks ago, the abrupt plummet of the temperature this week. I feel the near-freezing mist on my cheeks, which are about the only parts of my body exposed to the elements. But even as I trudge up the hill, focused on the ground — both to avoid the wind and to watch my step — I sense that something is out of place. The typical leap of my heart when I make it into the clearing, the dreamy sensation as I approach the house — none of this fills me now. Something is different. I read just the wool scarf, wrapped tightly around my face and irritating my skin to no end. Back before I crossed the stream, I was forced to tie it in a knot behind my head, or else it would fly off. Every few steps now, I stop to pull it back over my nose. I press on, with my head down and eyes open in slants; no angle is safe from the relentless, swirling wind. My hands have curled into fists to keep warm, leaving the finger holes of my gloves empty. I make it up the hill to within about thirty yards of the old Victorian house. It's been, what, sixteen years since high school, and it feels more like thirty to my legs. I catch my breath next to my favorite oak tree, whose naked branches wave mercilessly from side to side in this wind. The estate of Dr. Derrick Reinardt and his wife, Rachel, rests triumphantly on top of a small hill in the suburb of Highland Woods. Your basic spread in this north-shore bedroom community: sprawling acreage in the back with no front yard to speak of, a fairly unassuming exterior masking the ornate decor within. This is the upper-class side of the suburb — not mega-rich family money but working-class wealth, CEOs, doctors, personal-injury lawyers, a former governor — and the houses in this neighborhood remind me of tiny fiefdoms, wide plots bordered by trees and shrubbery that serve more to ensure privacy than to impress. This is not a bad thing, mind you; there is no way that a neighbor could see me back here. The Reinardts have a long, wooden back patio with a surprisingly simple array of wood furniture and a gas barbecue grill that is covered this time of the year with a thick gray tarp. The den is in the back of the house by the patio, separated by a large sliding glass door with a silk curtain that — The curtain is open. Wait. Today's Thursday, right? Yeah, of course it is. Am I late? Could she be done already? I furiously pull back my coat sleeve to look at my watch, which is no small chore wearing these gloves. No. No. I be late. No. The fluorescent numbers read 9:34. As usual, I'm way early. Maybe she hasn't set up yet. But — that doesn't make sense, either. She usually has everything ready well before she starts. She knows I get here early, likes the fact that I'm waiting with anticipation. No, the curtain should definitely be closed. I stand around for a couple of minutes, looking over the house, seeing nothing, no sign of Rachel. Tonight the sky offers no light; the warm-weather insects do not provide their creaks and calls. The fury of the wind mutes all sound, leaving me to a silent film with not much for video, either. Maybe she just got a late start, is all. Maybe she'll come down soon. I yank my scarf down just in time to sneeze into my gloves. Then I sneeze