I wanted to really like this book, and it turned out to be really good. The 1 reason it is not 5 stars is the book is overwritten. The author is an excellent writer but in a way that is the problem. There is to much going on in this book:
*How gritty, and dying and run down Atlantic City has become.
*Women- primarily prostitutes, are being murdered, some are professional dominatrixes, some are drug addicts and some have been cast off and thrown away
* A 16 year old fortune teller who has increasingly disturbing visions of the women being killed. Whose mother is no longer around and whose aunt is deeply troubled as well.
*A former art gallery worker who was wronged by her boyfriend and is now working in Atlantic City.
*A deaf mute with whole story of his own - this alone could have been a separate book.
*A lot about how hard it is to be a woman, but not nearly enough about the women themselves.
There are more subplots but you get the idea.
Talented author but she needs to reign in the storylines. ( )

Suspense

Made it around 26% and still had no clue what was going on. DNF ( )

Gave up ( )

This novel tells the story of several murdered women dumped in the salt marsh behind a decaying motel on the outskirts of Atlantic City. The story centers on Lily, who recently moved back home after a bad break-up and takes a job as a receptionist at a casino spa, and Clara, a teenager working on the boardwalk as a fortune teller and whose guardian is pressuring her to take on some riskier work. There are missing girls who have family looking for them, missing women who have family who hope they will one day come home, and there are women whose absence goes unremarked and unmourned. Lily and Clara form a tenuous friendship as they look for a missing teenage girl and try to find a local sex worker when she goes missing.

This isn't a traditionally-structured crime novel. The focus is on the lives of the women before they disappear and remains on the dangers experienced by women on the fringes of society in a failing town dedicated to vice. The portrayal of Atlantic City is so well done and heartbreaking. Each woman, regardless of her decisions, is a fully drawn character with hopes and dreams and a fully-realized past. This isn't a novel about a serial killer, but one about his victims. ( )