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Torrance, Florida, is a small community where everyone knows everyone else and everyone's personal business is public knowledge. Schoolteacher Sandy Crosbie and her husband Ian have just moved to Torrance from Rochester, New York because Ian said it would be best for his business. It isn't until their family is set up in the new town and Sandy finds a job in her children's high school that Ian leaves them. It seems that Ian has met another woman on the Internet while the family was still living in Rochester. Her name is Kerri and she lives in Torrance, Florida and Ian has fallen in love with her. It was because of Kerri that Ian had moved his family to Torrance. Now, Sandy, her daughter Megan and son Tim live together and Ian stays in a condo. Sandy feels humiliated because the whole town knows about Ian's dalliances and their son Tim is having a difficult time fitting in. On top of that, Sandy finds she is the English teacher to Delilah, Kerri's daughter. Meanwhile, though Sandy's daughter Megan is the exact type to be accepted into the 'in crowd' at school, Delilah is an outcast. She is overweight and the other kids call her names and are always making fun of and telling jokes about her. Delilah tries to fit in. She joins the drama club and goes to all the parties, but she's still never accepted. Partially that is because her mother Kerri has not only slept with Ian Crosbie but also with practically every other man in town. One day one of the popular girls at school is absent and soon she is listed as missing. Sheriff John Weber starts to investigate the disappearance. Soon, the teenage girl's body is found in a swamp. Her head has been shot off. Everyone in Torrance is a suspect and Sheriff Weber questions each citizen a couple of times. Yet, the sheriff can't help but tie this recent murder to another one in a nearby town where a teenage girl was reported missing and never found. The sheriff is sure that the first missing girl was also killed, and that there's a serial killer on the loose. HEARTSTOPPER by Joy Fielding is a much better book that I expected it to be. She gives us a good sense of what small town life is like where your personal secrets are known to one and all. We see what everyday problems are for the students at the high school where they try to fit in and conform to everyone else. Being different is not good at all, as Delilah, Sandy's son Tim, and a few other students can tell you. Fielding also spends time with the adult population and the reader gets to know all their little secrets. We also read the murderer's journal, which explains why the deaths are essential. With those hints, the readers are presented with a fine puzzle to solve. There are lots of suspects in HEARTSTOPPER. Could it be Ian Crosbie, the philanderer who is new in town and not well liked? Maybe it's Cal who runs the local bar and whose wife seems to have quite a few bruises on her? Maybe it's one of the students, or the drama teacher who lives alone with his house full of cats? Who knows? But as the story continues, Fielding gives us enough evidence to pin the murders on every person living in Torrance! Read HEARTSTOPPER for a superb mystery with a satisfying ending that ties everything up neatly.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, January 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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