Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2007
400 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Welcome to Torrance, Florida. Population: 4,160. As Sheriff John Weber would attest, the deadliest predators to date in his tiny hamlet were the alligators lurking in the nearby swamps. But that was before someone abducted and murdered a runaway teenage girl...and before the disappearance of popular and pretty Liana Martin. The pattern is chilling to Sandy Crosbie, the town's new high school English teacher. With a marriage on the rocks, thanks to her husband's online affairs, and a beautiful teenage daughter to protect, Sandy wishes she'd never come to the seemingly quiet town with shocking depths of scandal, sex, and brutality roiling beneath its surface. And as Sheriff Weber digs up more questions than answers in a dead-end investigation, one truth emerges: the prettiest ones are being targeted, the heartstoppers. And this killer intends to give them their due....
"Every few chapters, the anonymous killer offers an entry, which adds to the suspense, though the generous time spent with our mystery villain takes some of the kick out of the ending. " - PW.
"Exciting and unexpectedly touching reading from the talented Fielding." - Booklist.
"Although the narrative is compulsively readable, the mystery cheats by banishing crucial facts from the consciousness of point-of-view characters...you'll be up all night reading, but you'll hate yourself in the morning. " - Kirkus.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joy Fielding submitted her first story to Jack and Jill when she was eight years old, and the story was rejected. At twelve, she wrote her first TV script, the story of a twelve-year-old girl who murders her parents. Like the magazine story, it, too was rejected, but the thought of it caused her parents many a sleepless night. In her last year of high school her English teacher announced to the class that Joy Fielding was going to be a writer, though she hadn't decided that yet for herself.
At the University of Toronto, Fielding decided she wanted to be an actress. She performed in numerous campus productions and starred in the student movie, "Winter Kept Us Warm", a fixture on the art house circuit even today. After she graduated from the University of Toronto in 1966, with a BA in ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Joy Fielding's Website
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