"Engrossing...The Pact is compelling reading."--PeopleIn this heart-rending tale of love and friendship, Jodi Picoult brings to life a familiar world, and in a single terrifying moment awakens every parent's worst fear: We think we know our children . . . but do we ever really know them at all?The Golds and the Hartes, neighbors for eighteen years, have always been inseparable. So have their children--and it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. But the bonds of family, friendship, and passion--which had seemed so indestructible--suddenly threaten to unravel in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.When midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the truth. Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris pilfered 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 describes.This extraordinary, poignant novel paints an indelible portrait of two families in anguish . . . and creates an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris is put on trial for murder.