Heartstopper

February 19, 2007
Bestseller Fielding (Mad River Road
) delivers another dependably entertaining thriller. When Sandy Crosbie and her physician husband, Ian, move to Torrance, Fla. (pop. 4,160), from Rochester, N.Y., to make a new start, Sandy quickly discovers that the real new start is Ian's affair with "Barbie clone" Kerri Franklin, whom he met on an Internet chat line. Sandy, who's irritatingly docile about being deserted, trudges forward, getting a job teaching at the local high school and keeping an eye on her two teenage children, Megan and Tim. The author convincingly portrays the Crosbie siblings and other students, while examining in more depth than some readers might prefer teenage angst and puppy love. A popular girl, Liana Martin, disappears and her body later turns up in a swamp. Amid the offstage drama of the school play rehearsals, Sandy's painful blind date and Ian's affair, tension builds and cracks appear within and among local residents. 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.

January 1, 2007
In Fielding's latest suspense novel set in tiny Torrance, Florida, a serial killer's journal entries are interspersed with the stunned reactions of various of the town's citizens when two teenage girls go missing. Sandy Crosbie, a high-school English teacher and the mother of two teenagers, has relocated to remote Torrance from Rochester, New York, at the urging of her handsome doctor husband. But his reasons for the move soon become apparent when he leaves her for Kerri Franklin, a "Barbie clone and Internet paramour extraordinaire." Sandy, along with the rest of the town's citizens, is jolted out of her self-absorption when the body of the most popular girl in school is found buried in a shallow grave. Now it's up to exhausted, overweight Sheriff John Weber, unhappily married to the TV-addicted Pauline, to calm residents' fears and find out what happened to the pretty blonde teen. But even as he fends off the town's obnoxious mayor, intent on calling in the FBI, Sandy's daughter goes missing. Fielding crafts a suspenseful plot, with a stunner of a twist, while giving her characters a depth of humanity not frequently found in formula fiction. Exciting and unexpectedly touching reading from the talented Fielding.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)