Two victims. One sociopath. Lots of terror.

Serial killer Rad Sanders has big plans for his teenage victims: Lu will watch as he kills Lisa and be offered a choice – become his slave or share the fate of her friend. Then Rad will get so deep inside her that she will no longer know where he ends and the pathetic remnants of herself begin. But Lu has a surprise for Rad . . .

“A gripping and relentless novel about desperate people in a desperate world . . . The impeccable prose of Mary Maddox makes it impossible to turn away from Rad, the brutal serial killer whose insatiable hunger threatens anyone who crosses his path, and Lu, the young teenage girl who is not what she appears to be, who possesses a power that may deliver unto Rad a reckoning beyond his imagination. This dark, but beautifully rendered novel is one you do not want to miss.” — Roxane Gay, author of Ayiti

“I’ve worked with enough fiction to spoil much of my reading; unless the author is a spellbinder I become distracted, listening to the writing machinery humming or clanking. In Talion, Mary Maddox pits a sadistic sociopath against two achingly vulnerable potential victims with an effortless narrative control that kept me wide-eyed, as anxious over the outcome as in my early glory days as a reader. Next time through, Mary, I’ll figure out how you did it. — Sherwood Kiraly, author of Diminished Capacity and Big Babies 

“The story is propelled by suspense, and made delicious by Maddox’s Ray Bradbury-like gift for deft, deep-shadowed description. … Those last hundred pages just about turn themselves.” — Dan Hagen, Charleston Times-Courier

“The boundaries of the noir with its mournful, gloomy and depressive elements are pushed almost to the edge of darkness . . . . Maddox skillfully creates a shocking mix of the bleak atmospheric tones of the macabre with the supernatural, while holding onto the page-turning exhilaration of a real thriller . . . one haunting read that is sure to give you nightmares!” — Norm Goldman, Book Pleasures

I began my life in Soldier Summit, Utah, a town of a few dozen people high in the mountains. My father owned a cafe, a gas station, and a combination grocery-bar – literally half the businesses in town. Even a minnow can be a big fish if the pond is small enough. Though I have lived in the Midwest for most of my adult life, I still miss the mountains and dream that someday I’ll live there again.

I graduated from Knox College and the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. At present I teach composition at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, where I live with my husband, Joe, and our bird, Westie. Along with writing fiction, I spend my time reading, playing Scrabble at the local club, and riding my horse, Tucker.

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