In a fictionalized reimagining of his adolescence, the author of the iconic American Psycho crafts a gripping coming-of-age story starring a group of high school students and a serial killer who begins targeting teenagers across the city.
Los Angeles, 1981. Seventeen-year-old Bret and his friends are seniors at the prestigious Buckley private school, enjoying the last carefree year of their teenage lives with parties, alcohol, and drugs.
But everything changes when a mysterious student named Robert Mallory arrives at their school. Smart, charming, and charismatic, Mallory quickly becomes part of Bret’s close-knit circle of friends, while Bret begins to develop an increasingly intense obsession with the young man, who doesn’t seem entirely honest with his new friends.
At the same time, a serial killer known as the Trawler is terrorizing the city. His horrifyingly violent acts seem like threatening messages aimed at Bret and his friends. Or is it all in Bret’s imagination after all?
As his obsession with Mallory grows and the Trawler closes in, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation. His friends, his desires, even his own mind become sources of doubt as he desperately tries to figure out whom he can trust.
Set against the backdrop of 1981 Los Angeles, The Shards is a dark, gripping psychological thriller about obsession, desire, and the end of innocence, where reality and fantasy begin to resemble each other dangerously.
