I Shot the Devil
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
FIVE WENT INTO THE WOODS. TWO NEVER CAME BACK.
Erin Sloane was sixteen when high school senior Andre Villiers was murdered by his friends.
They were her friends, too, led by the intense, charismatic Ricky Hell. Five people went into West Cypress Woods the night Andre was murdered. Only three came out.
Ativan, alcohol, and distance had dimmed Erin’s memories of that time. But nearly twenty years later, an aging father will bring her home. Now a journalist, she is asked to write a story about the Southport Three and the thrill-kill murder that electrified the country. Erin’s investigation propels her closer and closer to a terrifying truth. And closer and closer to danger.
An unforgettable story of murder, trauma, and childhoods lost, I Shot the Devil is a taut, prize-winning debut novel from an electrifying new talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McIver's propulsive if overstuffed debut follows a hard-drinking journalist as she attempts to solve a Long Island cold case. On Halloween 1994, five teenagers went into the woods in Suffolk County, N.Y., to perform a satanic ritual while high on psychedelics. Only three came out alive: Andre Villiers was killed by his friends, and police shot ringleader Ricky Heller at the scene. Teenager Erin Sloane was home that night, drinking to suppress her anger that Ricky stood her up for a date. Sixteen years later, Erin is still mired in booze and working as a writer for the local monthly magazine when she's assigned a retrospective story about the case. Interviewing the survivors and their families opens old wounds and inflicts new ones, including being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, Danny Quinlan-Walsh, who was one of the survivors and is desperate to put an end to Erin's reporting. McIver initially makes good on her intriguing premise, providing a handful of truly jaw-dropping twists, but the secret betrayals and brutal criminal acts begin to strain credulity as they pile high in the final act. Here's hoping McIver's next outing is more finely tuned.
