Then an old friend of Tom's, a local star athlete, is arrested for a triple murder on the beach near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows in his gut that Dante Halleyville is innocent. Dante asks Tom to represent him in what could be the new Trial of the Century, and for the first time, Tom is on the spot and in the public eye.

Tom recruits Manhattan superlawyer Kate Costello to help fight the case. She's a tough hire, because Kate is his ex-girlfriend, and she's seen him at his worst — but she comes back. All the two have to do is discover who really executed three locals and why they went to such incredible lengths to set up Dante as the killer. Even as Tom wonders whether he can ever get Kate to forgive him for his past sins, the case takes on astonishing dimensions, revealing a world of illegal pleasures, revenge, and fear among the superrich. With the entire nation's eyes on him, Tom orchestrates a series of revelations to lure the real killer out of hiding — and what emerges is staggering. No one could imagine a killer this ruthless.

The final scenes of Beach Road unveil a truth so unexpected that it will leave listeners gasping in shock. Written with the whiplash precision that has made James Patterson America's #1 suspense writer, Beach Road is his wildest and most thrillingly unpredictable novel ever.

Peter de Jonge is a longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine whose work has appeared in The Best American Sports Writing and numerous other anthologies. He is coauthor with Patterson of the bestsellers Miracle on the 17th Green and The Beach House . He lives in New York.