Darkness on the Edge of Town is a mystery thriller--police procedural? I'm bad at the finer details of categorizing. Anyway, Laura Cardinal is an investigator with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The case in this story is a murder of a teenage girl in small town Bisbee. The girl's body is posed, propped up in a band shell, dressed up like a doll.

Laura's investigation quickly leads her to suspect a serial killer who's using the internet to find his victims, despite disagreement from local cops.

There are twists and turns along the way, and a couple big surprises that I'm not going to mention here. The story is also full of atmosphere, and shows the darkest side of human nature.

Laura ends up getting her man, and Jake's assured us this won't be her last case.

I think I'd have been even more disturbed by the story if I'd read it 6 years ago, when my daughter first got on the internet at age 13. It was the summer between 7th and 8th grades, and she'd had a surgery that kept her at home and miserable most of the time. IMs and chat rooms gave her interaction with her friends (as well as really honing her typing skills!), and let her meet new ones, but there's always the specter of bad guys out there. It was interesting that several of the girls in the story didn't use the computer at home, but rather at the library, which ties in nicely with my belief that forbidding kids the internet isn't the way to keep them safe--better to give them tools to keep themselves safe---never give out your full name, address, phone number, or photo, report anyone who makes you uncomfortable.

whoops. Somehow a soap box got in here, and I just climbed up on it. Stepping down now. ( )