Dear Readers,

In a slasher movie, a faceless madman axes random victims one horrible night. A heroine survives to unmask and kill the killer; justice done, nightmare over. Trust me: Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise, where one night of monstrous brutality lingers for decades, squeezes you in its grip longer than any movie.

June 21, 1977: On a cross-country bike trip, Yale undergrads Terri and friend Shayna were sleeping in the desert of central Oregon. They awoke to a truck running them over. The driver—a neatly dressed cowboy, seen only from the neck down—entered their tent with a hatchet. After hacking away at their already-crushed bodies, he left abruptly. Both barely survived. Terri remembers every millisecond; Shayna, nothing. The culprit unidentified, both young women resumed their lives, forever estranged.

Snapping out of a trauma-induced stupor in 1992, Terri decides to take on the cold case herself. As she investigates in Oregon over the next several years, the mystery deepens: Cops and townies know who did it, yet no one’s come forward. Her assailant is a free man—whom Terri will meet face-to-face.

In a forensics-obsessed culture, I’ve read no other book that so perceptively autopsies the emotional, cultural anatomy of violence—its psychic imprint on victims, a community, even the attacker. Visceral, lyrical, and thought-provoking, Terri’s epic journey to catharsis becomes yours as well.

Justin Ravitz
Associate Editor, QPB