2007 Atria Publishing
387 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6/26/2015
Goodreads rating: 3.68
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Florida - a small town in Alligator Alley
My comments: There were many things to like about this book and a few things to passionately dislike. So which one should I talk about? There are three major points-of-view in this story: a high school English teacher, the chief of police, and the writings/braggings of the antagonist. The setting, a small town in alligator alley in Florida, worked well. I don't like coming across teachers in books that are not good role models to the profession. I'm appalled at the things that Sandy Crosbie allows her student to get away with - particularly being hugely mean to each other. She wants her cheating husband back (he's a worm) even though he flaunts his new floozy right in front of her. I have no respect for her at all, except, perhaps, in some of her parenting. And then we have the chief of police. What a piece of work he is! It all come together, though, and even though I had a pretty good idea who the antagonist was, the mystery kept me enthralled for much of my cross-country journey.
Goodreads synopsis: From the "New York Times" and internationally bestselling author of "Mad River Road" comes a spine-tingling thriller about a picturesque Florida town -- and the killer determined to prey on its teenage girls.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....
Alternating between the chilling journal entries of a cold-blooded murderer and the sizzling scandals of small-town life, "Heartstopper" is Joy Fielding's most exciting novel of suspense yet.
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