Columbine has become the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." But it is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of New- town, Parkland, and Pulse, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.

Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene, and he spent ten years on this book. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings--several of which are reproduced in the appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar-opposite killers, which contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.