Child’s Play: A Thriller

Elle Harrison is getting ready to start another year teaching second grade at the local school. Her husband was murdered two years prior, and Elle has recently listed her house so she can really move on and have a fresh start. But on her preparation day, she discovers the body of her principal, murdered in a grisly manner. One of Elle’s former students has just been released after serving time in juvenile hall for murdering his father. His younger brother is on Elle’s roster. Another teacher turns up dead a couple days later, and Elle, who has a dissociative disorder that causes her to space out, spends a lot of time drinking too much with her girlfriends and on her own and making bad decisions about her own safety as bodies mount up.

Author Merry Jones certainly has created an entertaining and twisted mystery with enough red herrings to keep most readers from seeing what is coming, but the bread crumbs readers should be able to follow aren’t there, and the hints of romance between Elle and the homicide detective are simply ignored or forgotten. The mystery may hold readers’ interest, but this is not a wholly satisfying book.