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Your Life Is Mine

A novel by Nathan Ripley.

Nathan Ripley

CBC Books ·

Blanche, an up-and-coming filmmaker, has distanced herself in every way she can from her father, the notorious killer and cult leader, Chuck Varner. In 1996, when she was a small child, he went on a shooting spree before turning the gun on himself.

Now, Blanche learns that her mother has been murdered. She returns to her childhood home, where she soon discovers there's more to the death than police are willing to reveal. The officer who's handling the case is holding information back, and a journalist who's nosing around the investigation is taking an unusual interest in Blanche's family.

Blanche begins to suspect that Chuck Varner's cult has found a new life, and that her mother's murder was just the beginning of the cult's next chapter. (From Simon & Schuster)

From the book

Before a shooter is a shooter, he's just a man in a room.

It's what follows that brings the background to the scene, to the way we remember it. The domestic dispute reports, the spotty employment record, the legal and illegal firearms history, the I-always-knew neighbours. Before all of that, he comes into the room with his gun, hidden or not, and he is just a man, and not the kind that anyone is used to noticing. Not remarkably handsome, and remarkably ugly only in retrospect. After what he's done.

On August 17, 1996, Chuck Varner walked into the Harlow Mall in Stilford California, with a Beretta 92FS in his waistband holster. I was there, too.

From Your Life is Mine by Nathan Ripley ©2019. Published by Simon & Schuster.

Interviews with Nathan Ripley

The Next Chapter1:26David Huebert and Nathan Ripley reveal their touchstone books
Authors David Huebert and Nathan Ripley reveal the horror and crime books they read and re-read. 1:26

Other books by Nathan Ripley

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