Editorial content for Pretty Little Things
Reviewer (text)
PRETTY LITTLE THINGS is a bit of a change of pace for Jilliane Hoffman. While her first three novels would be classified most accurately as courtroom or legal thrillers, her latest is at its core a police procedural, one that turns a laser-point focus on the nightmare of every parent: a child who disappears.
The book is set in Hoffman's familiar south Florida environs of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, but introduces a new protagonist: Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Special Agent Bobby Dees. Nicknamed "The Shepherd," Dees is in charge of the FDLE Crimes Against Children Squad, and due to a combination of dogged determination and finely honed instinct, he has the ability to find missing children --- either living or dead --- and bring them home. Despite nationwide publicity regarding his abilities, though, Dees has experienced a fall from grace. His superiors feel he is getting burned out on his job; worse, the disappearance of Katy, his own daughter, for almost one year remains his most heartbreaking and perplexing case.
Things do not fully come to a head until 13-year-old Lainey Emerson goes missing after supposedly being out with friends. Lainey is initially dismissed as another of the hundreds of runaway children who leave home without notice every year from the Miami area. But Dees suspects otherwise, and his investigation leads him to believe that Lainey is the victim of an online predator. His suspicions are proven true when the abductor, who comes to be known as "Picasso," starts leaving evidence of other abductions with a local television station, leading to the bodies of Picasso's victims. It soon becomes clear that Picasso is taunting Dees, who in turn must confront the very real possibility that this is the person behind Katy's disappearance and that the next body he dumps may well be hers.
Picasso continues to ratchet up the taunting. And just when Dees and the police feel they may have brought his South Florida reign of terror to an end, they find that things are about to get much worse for South Florida, particularly for Dees. Any resolution of the case will be bittersweet at best if he is able to save every child but his own.
Hoffman, who has demonstrated the ability to bring chills in hot climates ever since her debut, RETRIBUTION, really pulls out the stops here. Be warned: Picasso is a frightening character, and the methodology he employs to taunt the police and Dees is off-kilter and nightmarish, to say the least. Dees is a protagonist who Hoffman hopefully will reprise in a future novel. Grim, dedicated, bull-headed and fiercely driven, he is precisely the guy you would want to have searching for your missing daughter. Hoffman also infuses Picasso with a grim believability; if you're not currently sealing your daughter into her room with barbed wire each night, you'll consider it after reading PRETTY LITTLE THINGS. And you'll definitely be looking at her computer history.
Teaser
Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a home police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her stepfather favors his own blood over another man's problems --- namely Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza.
Promo
Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a home police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her stepfather favors his own blood over another man's problems --- namely Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza.
About the Book
Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a home police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her stepfather favors his own blood over another man's problems --- namely Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza. So when Lainey does not come home from a Friday night out with her friends, it is dismissed by the Coral Springs P.D. as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life. But FDLE Special Agent Bobby Dees, who has headed up the Department's difficult Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad in Miami for more than a decade, is not quite so sure.
Nicknamed "The Shepherd" by colleagues, he has an uncanny ability to find the missing and bring them back home --- dead or alive. Haunted by the still-unsolved disappearance of his own daughter, Bobby recognizes the all too familiar up-swell inside him, the gut feeling that Lainey Emerson is no runaway. A search of her computer and a talk with her best friend reveal Lainey was involved in a secret internet relationship, spawned over a chat room, and nurtured through untraceable instant messages. Bobby fears she may be the victim of an online predator, and when chilling hand-painted portraits of other possible victims are mailed to a local television station, he realizes she may not be the only one. The faceless monster from cyberspace, who has gone to remarkable lengths to stay invisible, now seeks a captive audience. And it is Bobby Dees he wants watching.
Can Bobby win this deadly game of cat and mouse, one involving the most prolific killer he has ever encountered? And will he be able to save Lainey and the others before it is too late?
