"One of our most original and entertaining thriller writers" (The Denver Post), Greg Iles holds readers hostage in this electrifying bestseller of Southern small-town suspense. In the span of twenty-four hours, everything Laurel Shields believes about her life and her marriage to a prominent doctor will be shattered--if she survives a terrifying ordeal. The day begins with the jarring discovery that, soon after ending an affair, Laurel is pregnant. But when she returns home to find her husband ashen, unkempt, and on the brink of violence, a nightmare quickly unfolds. In the heart of an idyllic Mississippi town, behind the walls of her perfect house, Laurel is locked in a volatile standoff with a husband she barely recognizes. Confronted by evidence of her betrayal, she must tread a deadly path between truth and deception while a ring of armed police prepares a dangerous rescue. But Laurel's only hope lies with her former lover, a man whom fate has granted the power to save both Laurel and her children--if she can protect his identity long enough. . . .ing day in the history of a marriage, one that in less than five hours will make the Shields house the vortex of a nerve-wracking siege. While a nervous ring of armed men awaits its chance to storm the suburban home, inside the house the clock ticks down on exposure of Laurel's terrible secret. But she is not alone in her lies. Before the siege is through, this terrifying drama will pull in desperate characters from the town and drive Dr. Shields, his wife, and her lover to the very brink of sanity and survival. Rich with Southern atmosphere, and perceptively laced with the tacit deceptions and psychological cracks found in nearly all marriages, Third Degree delivers another knockout, page-turning read from Greg Iles, "the poster boy of southern gothic thrillers" (Kirkus Reviews), and proves again that Iles is today's unparalleled master of the suspense novel.