Los Angeles, the late 1970s: Jess Shepard is an installation artist who creates environments that focus on light and space, often leading to intense sensory experiences for visitors to her work. A run of critically lauded projects peaks with Zero Zone, an installation created at a former nuclear bomb testing site in the New Mexico desert. But when a small group of fanatics barricade themselves inside the installation, the authorities are forced to intervene, setting off a violent showdown and media sensation that will haunt Jess for years.
Devastated by the distortion of her art, Jess retreats from the world: Was she somehow responsible for the chaos at Zero Zone? But the past isn’t done with her yet. One of the Zero Zone survivors, a troubled teenager, is missing, and the girls’ parents ask Jess to help find her. But the group’s charismatic leader is also looking for the girl, who he believes is the key to recreating their experience. Now Jess has no choice but to face down her fear, and try to recover her art—and possibly her life—from a violent cult intent on making it their own.
A Chicago Review of Books Must Read Book of the Month
One of CrimeReads Best New Novels to Read in October
“A sophisticated thriller…a rare chance to consider the risks that great creators take when they try to inspire us to action.”
- Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Superbly captures an era when gurus both good and bad were plentiful, conceptual artists risked their own skins and psyches, and art seemed to open new windows on the soul.”
- Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
★ “Writing with verve and precision, O’Connor serves up a thoughtful, original thriller…A vital, deeply engaging work.”
- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
★ “An intimate experience of art from the inside out…unexpected, beautiful and haunting…masterful.”
- BookPage (Starred Review)
★ “After finishing this cinematic novel…readers will be compelled to start again at page one to discover how O’Connor pieces together his suspenseful, incredibly well-written narrative.”
- Library Journal (Starred Review)
"Masterful." "Magnetic.”
- Paul Wilner, Zyzzyva - Booklist
"Zero Zone sets itself apart…a meditation on art in the body of a thriller."
- Shelf Awareness
