The Shining Girls

THE GIRL WHO WOULDN’T DIE HUNTS THE KILLER WHO SHOULDN’T EXIST.

Kirby Mazrachi has always seemed like the kind of teenage girl destined for either greatness or tragedy. Her home life is in constant upheaval. Her single mother is absent more often than present. But no one could have predicted the violence that befalls her—or the miracle of her survival.

Kirby is a shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper Curtis is destined to snuff out. This is the price demanded by the House upon which Harper stumbles, one that opens on to other times, and rescues him from his hardscrabble life in the shanty towns that have sprung up around Depression-era Chicago. At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of the shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate killer, vanishing into another time after each murder, untraceable—until one of his victims survives.

Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the ex-homicide reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on the impossible truth . . .

THE SHINING GIRLS is a masterful twist on the serial killer tale: a violent quantum leap featuring a memorable and appealing heroine in pursuit of a deadly criminal.

"THE SHINING GIRLS is utterly original, beautifully written, and I must say, it creeped the holy bejasus out of me. This is something special." (Tana French )

"I loved THE SHINING GIRLS. It really is a new kind of thriller, sitting somewhere between The Time Traveller's Wife and The Silence of The Lambs. A dark, relentless, time-twisting, page-turning murder story guaranteed to give you heart palpitations. It shines." (Matt Haig, author of The Radleys )

"A tremendous work of suspense fiction... a mind-melting, heart-pounding mashup that delivers on its promise." (Cory Doctorow )

"THE SHINING GIRLS is enthralling and dazzlingly inventive. Lauren Beukes risks everything with a startlingly original structure, that's perfectly executed. A huge accomplishment." (Deon Meyer )

"Imagine Poe and Steinbeck in a knife fight where Poe wins and writes Jack the Ripper's version of The Grapes of Wrath. Lauren Beukes's THE SHINING GIRLS is even scarier than that." (Richard Kadrey )

Lauren Beukes is the author of the future political thriller, Moxyland and Zoo City, a phantasmagorical noir which won the Arthur C Clarke Award and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC prize. She’s worked in journalism, satire, documentary-making and kids TV and writes comics for DC Vertigo. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with her husband and daughter.