The Heart of a Killer

November 1, 2011
From the Play-by-Play series (Changing the Game, 2011), Burton slides into romantic suspense with this novel of childhood friends reuniting as adults, with grim consequences. When teenage Anna Pallino is attacked in an alley, where a heart is carved in her chest, her four friends, all foster brothers, came to her rescue, beating the molester to death. Consequently, Anna's cop father, trying to protect his daughter and her friends, asks Anna's boyfriend, Dante, and his best friend, Gabe, to leave town so he can cover up their part in the crime. Fourteen years later, Dante and Gabe are back, and Anna is a cop, like her father. Suddenly, not only is Dante's foster father murdered in the same alley, with a heart cut in his chest, but so is the youngest of Dante's foster brothers. Who is copying the long-ago crime and why? And can Anna ever forgive Dante from running back then, instead of standing by her? Burton's novel is a poignant look at love and the crimes it can provoke.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)