Predisposed

What if we knew who was destined to kill?

Some children will grow up to be violent. This government finally stopped them.

Twenty years after the Great Election, safety trumps freedom. Social media is banned, soldiers roam the streets, and all twelve-year-olds are tested for psychopathy. Dr. Edith Westerly, a fifty-year-old neuropsychiatrist, oversees the institution for child psychopaths. Haunted by her mother's murder by a serial killer during the Crime Wave Era, Edith works tirelessly to cure the disorder, which is responsible for more than half of violent crimes.

Zack Stevenson, a shy sixth grader, tests positive. His parents don't doubt the results. They've always wondered if he smothered his newborn sister. Confined to Dr. Edith's institution, he struggles to survive alongside the twisted wards and their sinister pastimes.

When Edith and Zack's paths collide, a deadly chain of events is ignited that shatters their world.

"She knew in an instant. . . After nearly twenty years, it was still shocking when a child with puppy dog eyes, like this one, tested positive. But the machine didn't lie, and neither did the results from earlier in the day. This one is going to the Institution. Nothing to be done about it."

PSIP 001

The Screening

At age twelve, every child must be evaluated at a licensed testing hospital. Letters will be sent by mail one month before the testing date. One guardian may accompany the minor. Compliance is mandatory. Refusal is a federal offense.

PSIP 002

The Results

The results will be posted in the portal four weeks after the testing date. All results are final and cannot be contested. The margin of error is less than one percent.

PSIP 003

The Institution

Children who test positive are transferred to one of fourteen regional facilities. Contact with family is restricted. Duration of placement is indefinite.

R.G. Jarrett with Cinni

About the Author

R.G. Jarrett is the pen name of Rachel Jarrett, a debut novelist whose career has taken some unexpected turns.

Before co-founding and leading Zola, the wedding technology platform that has guided more than two million couples from engagement to newlywed life, Jarrett spent years as an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, serving two administrations. That experience, built on analytical rigor and a deep familiarity with how institutions wield power, has never really left.

Jarrett has also held senior roles across retail and e-commerce at Toys "R" Us, Babies "R" Us, FAO Schwarz, Barnes & Noble.com, and Gilt Groupe, and holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

Jarrett lives in New York with family and a dog named Cinni.

Author's Notes — Why Predisposed

I couldn't stop thinking about Bryan Kohberger.

After he was arrested for the brutal killing of four University of Idaho students, I kept coming back to the same question: could science have seen him coming? He appeared to be a textbook psychopath. And it turns out, to a degree, science can identify people like him. Psychopaths have measurably different brains. Brain imaging shows reduced activity in the amygdala, the part that processes fear and empathy. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control and moral reasoning, is structurally different too. These aren't character flaws. They're biological realities.

The numbers are hard to sit with. About 1% of the general population meets the clinical criteria for psychopathy, yet that group is responsible for an estimated 30 to 40% of violent crimes in the United States. The annual cost to the criminal justice system approaches $460 billion. This is a medical problem we keep treating as a criminal one.

The science in this book isn't real, but it's rooted in real research. The screening technology, the neurological markers, the institutional responses are all extrapolated from work happening in actual laboratories and courtrooms today. I hope it sparks some conversation.

And I want to be clear about something the real science is clear about too: most psychopaths are not violent. Most will never hurt anyone. The condition exists on a spectrum. Any system that ignored that would be exactly the kind of moral catastrophe this book explores.

Sources: Hare & Neumann (2010); Kiehl & Hoffman, Jurimetrics (2011); psychopathyis.org; Frierson et al., Aggression and Violent Behavior (2015); NIH/PMC neurobiological research on psychopathy gene expression (2020).

You'll want to know
when this comes out.

Enter your email. We'll be in touch when the cover drops, pre-orders open, and the world of Predisposed goes public.

Your information is being processed.