Book excerpt: The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter, Recursion, and Upgrade. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a mission: locate two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation turns up more questions than answers: Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out? Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan farther from the world he knew, from the man he was, until he must face a horrifying fact – he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive. The nail-bitingly suspenseful opening installment in Blake Crouch’s blockbuster Wayward Pines trilogy, Pines is at once a brilliant mystery tale and the first step into a genre-bending saga of suspense, science fiction, and horror.