The feral wasteland of the southern California desert and the badlands of Mexico: these are the settings for Boston Teran s searing debut novel--a dark， wrenching thriller about personal conviction， retribution， and survival.Fall 1970. In a remote playa a twelve-year-old boy stumbles upon a hideous scene in a dust-strewn trailer: the savage murder of a woman that will remain unsolved for twenty-five years.Christmas week， 1995. A fourteen-year-old girl is kidnapped by a bloodthirsty satanic cult that calls itself the Left-Handed Path. The leader， Cyrus， considers murder the "ultimate freedom， ultimate joy . . . ultimate service." His "tribe" is a group of drug-fueled young psychopaths honing their skills under the tutelage of a master. Helter Skelter. And then some. Bob Hightower， the girl s father， is a cop， suddenly more desperate than he ever imagined possible. There are no clues to his daughter s whereabouts， only a scene of unfathomable carnage--the mutilated corpses of her mother and stepfather--left behind by the kidnappers. His only hope is a fierce ex-cult member named Case Hardin， a woman tempered to an extraordinary strength by what she s endured， who s just getting off the junkie trail in a halfway house in Hollywood. Bob has absolutely no reason， and every need， to trust her. Case suspects that the killings， committed within fifty miles of each other and separated by a quarter of a century， are part of a byzantine nightmare she knows too well， a nightmare that has now engulfed Bob s daughter. Their quest--he for his child， she to exorcise her demons--becomes a primal hunt-and-chase through a savage subculture of drugs and ritualistic violence ("the black land of plenty") that takes them inexorably toward the limits of physical and psychological torment and trauma.God Is a Bullet is an indelible story of people who must discover what it means to surrender oneself completely--to drugs， or power， or faith， or love--and， when necessary， what it takes to come back. It is a stunning debut.