Third Degree

From New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes his latest tour de force thriller -- an unforgettable plunge into a world of sex, violence, marital betrayal, medical malpractice, and Southern intrigue . . .

Greg Iles' new big-trouble-in-a-small-town thriller takes place in the span of a terrifying single day. Elizabeth Pike, thirty-five, awakens in her perfect house in a perfect neighborhood in a beautiful little town to find her doctor husband wildly pulling books from the shelves in his study. He claims that his frantic search is the result of an IRS audit of his practice. Liz is not so sure . . .

Editorial Reviews

It's a quiet morning in the suburbs. Elizabeth Pike is a 35-year-old housewife who is about to discover that she is pregnant by her adulterous ex-lover, retired Air Force pilot Daniel McDavitt. On the same morning, her husband, Dr. John Pike, finds a badly concealed love letter from McDavitt to Elizabeth. Already under intense stress, he begins to unravel. In Third Degree, we relive what happens during that climactic day. An intense domestic drama that unfolds like a movie.

About The Author:

Greg Iles has led a sort of double life as a novelist. His first books, based on extrapolations from real events in World War II, earned him an initial following, but his very modern crime novels are what currently hold his -- and his readers' -- focus. His tight pacing and chilling, innovative concepts have made him especially attractive to Hollywood, which has optioned and/or expressed interest in several of his books. Iles's first novel, Spandau Phoenix, was about the secret escape of a Nazi soldier and the chilling plot related in his discovered diaries. It was a mixed success critically, earning praise for its premise but low marks on style. Since then, Iles has clearly developed as a novelist, and branched out in themes too. With his second novel, Black Cross, Iles displayed more of a voice and more streamlined plotting in his story of a conspiracy to use the Nazi's own weapons against them. Those first two titles did become bestsellers; but by the time...

Name:Greg Iles

Current Home:Natchez, Mississippi

Place of Birth:Stuttgart, Germany

Education:B.A., University of Mississippi, 1983

Awards:Mississippi Author���s Award for Fiction and the Bertelsmann Award for New Fiction for Black Cross, 1995

* Greg Iles's official web site

Biography

Greg Iles has led a sort of double life as a novelist. His first books, based on extrapolations from real events in World War II, earned him an initial following, but his very modern crime novels are what currently hold his -- and his readers' -- focus. His tight pacing and chilling, innovative concepts have made him especially attractive to Hollywood, which has optioned and/or expressed interest in several of his books.

Iles's first novel, Spandau Phoenix, was about the secret escape of a Nazi soldier and the chilling plot related in his discovered diaries. It was a mixed success critically, earning praise for its premise but low marks on style. Since then, Iles has clearly developed as a novelist, and branched out in themes too.

With his second novel, Black Cross, Iles displayed more of a voice and more streamlined plotting in his story of a conspiracy to use the Nazi's own weapons against them. Those first two titles did become bestsellers; but by the time Iles shifted gears to write crime thrillers set in his native Mississippi, he found himself getting even more attention -- and better reviews. His next two books, Mortal Fear and The Quiet Game, remain his personal favorites. Iles was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where his father was in charge of the medical clinic at the U.S. Embassy, in 1961. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983 and played guitar in a rock band for several years before trying his hand at writing novels.

Moving from screenplays to thrillers to speculative historical fiction, Iles continues to stretch as a writer. He also indulges his love for music (he once played guitar in the band Frankly Scarlet) by performing with the Rock Bottom Remainders, an author side project that includes writers Stephen King, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, and Amy Tan

Good To Know

After graduation from college, Iles worked as an x-ray and lab technician for his father, dug ditches, and worked as a professional guitarist and singer.

Iles has the ability to be gloomily prophetic, but not intentionally. In an online chat in 1997, a fan pointed out that some real-life Internet-related murders had followed his Mortal Fear. Iles responded: "A lot of my books have been that way. My World War II thriller about Sarin gas [Black Cross] was published two months before the Sarin attack in the Japanese subway. There are very weird coincidences out there. And I do have one surefire plot I have not and probably never will write, because of my fear someone will carry it out."

Iles's wife is a high-school sweetheart whom he married when he was 29.