FICTION · CHILDREN
Michele Jaffe
Most acclaimed
Loverboy
2001
LOVER BOY IS DYING TO COME OUT AND PLAY.The rules: Two weeks before he intends to slowly and sadistically kill his prey, Loverboy sends a collage of the future crime scene to the FBI. If the agents can solve the riddles of the collage in time, they can save the victim. Loverboy thinks that's more than fair. It's not his fault the feds have already failed five times.The players: Rosalind Carnow was last seen alone in her Las Vegas hotel room. No one knows where she is now--except Loverboy, and he's not saying a word. Imogen Page, an FBI agent with a painful past and uncertain future, may be the only person who can find her--and she is determined to decipher Loverboy's brilliant but deranged puzzle. If Loveboy lets her get that far.The game: Imogen matches wits with a homicidal mastermind, a fiercely intelligent opponent. Armed with her extraordinarily keen sense for detection, she must do for Rosalind what could not be done for Loverboy's previous victims: save her life.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Lady Killer
Mary DiNunzio is a trademark Lisa Scottoline heroine—she's strong, she's smart, and she's got plenty of attitude. In recent years, she's become a big-time business-getter at Rosato & Associates, but the last person she expects to walk into her office one morning—in mile-high stilettos—is super sexy Trish Gambone, her high school rival. Back then, while Mary was becoming the straight-A president of the Latin Club and Most Likely to Achieve Sainthood, Trish was the head Mean Girl, who flunked religion and excelled at smoking in the bathroom.As it turns out, however, Trish's life has taken a horrifying turn. She's terrified of her live-in boyfriend, who's an abusive, gun-toting drug dealer for the South Philly mob. There's only one problem—Mary remembers the guy from high school too. Unbeknownst to Trish, Mary had a major crush on him.Then Trish vanishes, a dead body turns up in an alley, and Mary is plunged into a nightmare, one that threatens her job, her family, and even her life. She goes on a one-woman crusade to unmask the killer, and on the way, finds new love in a very unexpected place.But before the novel's shocking surprise ending, Mary is forced to confront some very uncomfortable truths about her own past, and the profound effects of lifelong love—and hate.
Bad Girl
She never meant for it to happen. . . .For Chicago Thomas, aka Windy, it was an offer too good to refuse: the chance to head the forensics lab at the Las Vegas Police Department. With her six-year-old daughter in tow, Windy moves to Sin City hoping to start over with a loving fiance--far from the sad memories of a first marriage that ended in tragedy. But the job of her dreams is about to take a nightmarish turn.She wanted to be a good girl. . . .Though the first murders appear to be random, they are savage in their intensity: an entire family, butchered in their own home. Only a few days later, another family meets the same grisly fate. To Ash Leighton, the enigmatic chief of the Metro Violent Crime Unit, the signs are clear: a serial killer is stalking Las Vegas.But she just couldn't help herself. . . .In a breathless race against time, the lines between good and bad, right and wrong, begin to blur, and Windy and Ash find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. In a town where nothing is what it seems, only the evidence doesn't lie. And Windy may have to pay for the truth with her life. Sometimes being good is dangerous.From the Trade Paperback edition.