Read before you watch the movie based on this brilliant, laser-sharp tale of the deadly consequences of corporate downsizing, from a multi-award-winning, widely acclaimed mystery master.   

“A novel of excruciating brilliance...engrossing and relentless and all too plausible." -- New York Times Book Review

Burke Devore is a middle-aged manager at a paper company when the cost-cutting ax falls, and he is laid off. Eighteen months later and still unemployed, he puts a new spin on his job search..  With agonizing care, Devore finds the seven men in the surrounding area who could take the job that rightfully should be his, and systematically kills them. Transforming himself from mild-mannered middle manager to ruthless murderer, he discovers skills ne never knew he had -- and that come to him far too easily.