A Featured alternate selection of the Literary Guild, a selection of Doubleday Book Club; Paperback Edition published by Quill Books, May 1999; Australian edition (Allen & Unwin, 1999) reached the bestseller list. 

In this contemporary tale of love and friendship, Jodi Picoult brings to life a familiar world, and in a single terrifying moment awakens every parent's worse fear: We think we know our children...but do we ever really know them at all? 

For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty---they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. 

So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet---a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described. 

The profound questions faced by the characters in this heart-rending novel are those we can all relate to: How well do we ever really know our children, our friends? What if...? As its chapters unfold, alternating between an idyllic past and an unthinkable present, The Pact paints an indelible portrait of families in anguish...culminating in an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris finds himself on trial for murder.

With this riveting psychological drama, Jodi Picoult explores the dynamics of intimate relationships under stress---from the seemingly inexplicable mind of a teenager to the bonds of friendship and marriage. Few writers have such a gift for evoking everyday life coupled with the ability to create a level of dramatic tension that will keep you up reading late into the night. The Pact is storytelling at its best: wonderfully observed, deeply moving, and utterly impossible to put down. 
 
 
 

"Picoult is a writer of high energy and conviction who has, in her fifth novel, brought to life a cast of subtly drawn characters caught up in a tragedy as timeless and resonant as those of the Greeks or Shakespeare...this psychologically shrewd tale is as suspenseful as any best-selling legal thrilled...she forges a finely honed, commanding, and cathartic drama." 
--- Booklist

"As did Judith Guest in Ordinary People, Jodi Picoult captures the ripple effec that occurs after the sudden, violent death of a promising youngster in her captivating fifth novel, THE PACT...Scenes from Chris's trial are particulary compelling, more personal and emotionally resonant than anything from John Grisham."
--- The Raleigh News & Observer 

"From all angles, this is an outstanding story...a wake-up call and an unforgettable experience."
--- The Concord Monitor
"The novelist displays an almost uncanny ability to enter the skins of her trouble young protagonists." 
--- New York Times

"Jodi Picoult's fifth novel, THE PACT, is so good that we can't put it down...It is suspenseful, intelligently written, topical." 
--- Detroit Free Press

"...an affecting story of obsession, loss, and some of the more wrenching varieties of guilt. A moving story, mingling elements of mystery with sensitive exploration of a tragic subject." 
--- Kirkus Reviews