In another big debut novel, an unexpected group of students roams a leafy, DC-based campus; they're all psychopaths, including Chloe Sevre, a first-year honors student who practices yogalates and is plotting to kill a childhood friend she thinks treated her shabbily. They're being studied by a famed psychologist and are required to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements, but that doesn't prevent one of them from getting murdered. Now Chloe is focused not on killing but surviving—and trying to discover who's running about the college with blood-stained hands. A Pushcart Prize nominee, psychologist Kurian should know her stuff; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

DEBUT Chloe Sevre, a university student with clinical psychopathy, is one of seven students who have been recruited to participate in a psychological study, which takes up much of her time. When she's not checking in for mandated counseling, participating in psychological experiments, or completing random mood surveys, she's plotting. For six long years, she's waited to deliver vengeance. Now she's not only in the same city as the boy who raped her but at the very same school. Then two of the study participants are murdered. Suddenly, it's not just about the boy she wants to kill, but the hunter picking off members of her program one at a time. VERDICT Readers won't want to put down this fast and engaging debut novel, and they'll root for the characters who've been cast as villains; Chloe is a particular paradox, simultaneously deplorable and charming. Kurian seamlessly interweaves multiple perspectives, though there are enough different points of view to overwhelm some readers. Those with a strong sense of justice might also be turned off by the fact that Chloe's crimes go unpunished.—Vicki Briner, Broomfield, CO

Eighteen-year-old Chloe Sevre, the narrator of Kurian's splendid debut, is a freshman at John Adams University in Washington, D.C. She's delighted to be in "a busy city with a relatively high murder rate," because she has a plan that she has been nurturing for six years: to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who cruelly hurt her and lives in D.C. Chloe is one of seven students diagnosed as psychopaths receiving free tuition in exchange for participating in the university's Multimethod Psychopathy Panel Study. It's overseen by an earnest psychology professor who believes that, with the right direction, psychopaths can lead productive lives. Then one of the subjects of the study is fatally stabbed, and shortly thereafter another participant dies horribly. Chloe and two other surviving students, including the son of the Virginia state chairman for the Republican National Committee, realize they could be the next victims and do their best to band together to find the killer. Excellent pacing, sprightly narrative voices, and judicious dabs of wry humor make this a highly entertaining tale. Kurian's refreshingly different slant on psychopathy marks her as a writer to watch. Agent: Rebecca Scherer, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Sept.)