While parked at a gas station, Rhonda sees something so incongruously surreal that at first she hardly recognizes it as a crime in progress. She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.

From the author of the acclaimed Promise Not to Tell comes a chilling and mesmerizing tale of shattered innocence, guilt, and ultimate redemption.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 20 reviews)

Island of Lost Grils

The Book arrived quickly and in the condition stated by the seller. The receipt of the book was much faster than projected.Excellent service.
October 02, 2008

Wanted to like this, but . . .

This book came highly recommended by a librarian friend of mine, so I was looking forward to reading it. Even though I diligently read through it, it never "grabbed" me, and I found some of the plot devices a bit hard to swallow. Bottom line: meh.
August 26, 2008

Big disappointment...

I read PROMISE NOT TO TELL, and liked it somewhat, so I thought I'd give this one a try. I couldn't have been more disappointed.

I thought the characters were boring and unbelievable and the story, quite frankly, stupid. I'm sure it must be difficult for a writer to come up with ideas to write about, but come on, a child abductor wearing a rabbit costume? In broad daylight? In a convenience store parking lot? Driving a gold VW? Seriously?

There were far too many convenient plot points in this book as well. More than once I found myself laughing at events that were just a little to convenient to the story. Also, there was some repetitiveness in the writing that I found really annoying - It seems the author found "Rhonda nodded" to be a quite a favorite.

To be fair, I've read worse books, but still can't recommend this one.
August 25, 2008

Those Who Deceive Us

On the surface, this book is about an abduction and the search for a missing girl. The sole witness to the kidnapping is Rhonda, and as she tries to help find the kidnapper (who was dressed in a bunny suit at the time), she recalls a summer of her childhood a few years before her best friend also went missing. This summer was a turning point in her childhood much more than she knew at the time.

Both stories, past and present, are tragic enough. But I think neither is really the point of the book. To me, the point of the book was how very little in Rhonda's life is as she thinks it is. She begins to learn this during that one summer, but the full import of what was going on around her doesn't become clear until the hunt for the child she saw kidnapped is almost over.

And it's not that Rhonda's purposely deceiving herself, either in the past or in the present. But there are definitely things going on around her that she's not aware, and secrets that are being kept from her. Told in the third-person, but entirely from Rhonda's perspective, McMahon reveals these secrets in a slow but satisfying way.
August 08, 2008

A good second novel

This is another winning novel from Jennifer McMahon, full of mystery, local Vermont color, and strong personalities. If you have read McMahon's first novel, Promise Not to Tell, you will recognize the plot of this book. The two stories have similar structures. A female protagonist, Rhonda, gets involved in a present day crime that has links to a similar crime that occurred during her childhood. The story goes back and forth from the present to the past, gradually revealing the secrets of the people in a small Vermont town.

There are a few supernatural notes here, but McMahon does not craft another ghost story. Most of the action is rooted in realism. The main character is usually realistic in her thinking. Nevertheless, when a dowser fails to find the lost child, Rhonda decides that the child must be in outer space. This fact is delivered in a completely deadpan manner that left me scratching my head. It didn't seem to fit in this story.

McMahon's second novel is not quite as good as the first. I did not get to know the characters as well, or care about them as deeply. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read. I stayed up past midnight to finish it. Minor complaints aside, that is the measure of a good book.

August 03, 2008

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