Child's Play
A Thriller
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A tortured child returns to the school that failed him
Since her husband's murder two years earlier, life hasn't been easy for Elle Harrison. Now, at the start of a new school year, the second grade teacher is determined to move on. She's selling her house and delving into new experiences, like learning trapeze.
Just before the first day of school, Elle learns that a former student, Ty Evans, has been released from juvenile detention, where he served time for killing his abusive father. Within days of his release, Elle's school principal—who'd tormented Ty as a child—is brutally murdered. So is a teacher at the school. And Ty's former girlfriend. All the victims have links to Ty.
Ty's younger brother, Seth, is in Elle's class. When Seth shows up at school beaten and bruised, Elle reports the abuse, and authorities remove Seth and his older sister, Katie, from their home. Is Ty the abuser?
Ty seeks Elle out, confiding that she's the only adult he's ever trusted. She tries to be open-minded, even wonders if he's been wrongly condemned. But when she's assaulted in the night, she suspects that Ty is her attacker. Is he a serial killer? Is she his next intended victim?
Before Elle discovers the truth, she's caught in a deadly trap that challenges her deepest convictions about guilt and innocence, childhood and family. Pushed to her limits, she's forced to face her fears and apply new skills in a deadly fight to survive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Jones's fast-paced third Elle Harrison novel (after 2014's Elective Procedures), the Philadelphia second-grade teacher believes that she failed Ty Evans, a former student who later confessed to killing his abusive father, but she hopes to redeem herself with his younger brother, Seth, now enrolled in her class. With Ty newly released from juvenile detention and clashing with their alcoholic mother, Seth's home life is unstable. When the draconian school principal and a humorless teacher both of whom treated Ty cruelly are murdered, Elle is torn between belief in his innocence and her desire to protect Seth. Meanwhile, the realtor charged with selling her house becomes increasingly aggressive, and when someone drugs and rapes Elle, she doesn't know whether to suspect the realtor or the killer. The identities of the rapist and murderer are obvious well before Elle or other characters identify them. Still, Elle's complex feelings toward her late husband who was murdered while they were separated add nuance and depth.
