Pretty Little Things by Jilliane Hoffman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Vulnerable loners, left alone to grow up, looking for friendship anywhere they could find it and from anyone who would offer it.” - Pretty Little Things, Jilliane Hoffman

Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a home police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her stepfather favors his own blood over another man’s problems—namely Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza. So when Lainey does not come home from a Friday night out with her friends, it is dismissed by the Coral Springs P.D. as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life.

But FDLE Special Agent Bobby Dees, who has headed up the Department’s difficult Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad in Miami for more than a decade, is not quite so sure. Nicknamed “The Shepherd” by colleagues, he has an uncanny ability to find the missing and bring them back home— dead or alive. Haunted by the still-unsolved disappearance of his own daughter, Bobby recognizes the all too familiar up-swell inside him, the gut feeling that Lainey Emerson is no runaway. A search of her computer and a talk with her best friend reveal Lainey was involved in a secret internet relationship, spawned over a chat room, and nurtured through untraceable instant messages. Bobby fears she may be the victim of an online predator, and when chilling hand-painted portraits of other possible victims are mailed to a local television station, he realizes she may not be the only one.

The faceless monster from cyberspace, who has gone to remarkable lengths to stay invisible, now seeks a captive audience. And it is Bobby Dees he wants watching. Can Bobby win this deadly game of cat and mouse, one involving the most prolific killer he has ever encountered? And will he be able to save Lainey and the others before it is too late?

This book was fun to read, but not in a bad way. I have been looking for an actually good turn-your-brain-off crime novel author for a while now, and I think Jilliane Hoffman is a good choice. 

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I would like this book with the prologue. It took me a few chapters to get into it and realize that I was indeed enjoying myself. I took a backseat approach to this mystery, unique for me. Typically, I like to be a passenger seat driver to mystery novels, trying to figure out whodunnit right along side of the detectives. But in this book, I was fine with feeling like I was along for the ride, watching Bobby and Zo hunt down Picasso. That's not to say I didn't have a guess, but I wasn't that committed to it.

One of the things that I really liked was how even though we do have chapters from the killer's point of view, Hoffman took great care to never actually reveal who it was, and it even served to purposefully throw us off the trail of some suspects. I also felt like the villain's point of view was realistic. It didn't feel overdone bordering on cheesy and definitely unrealistic, like how the kidnapper's perspective felt in Hollie Overton's Baby Doll. I could believe someone could actually think like Picasso did. 

I also honestly liked all the characters, and actually rooted for Bobby and Zo (especially Zo, loved him), which is always unusual for me. I actually wanted Bobby to catch Picasso, to save his career and his daughter. I wanted Lainey to get rescued. And I liked how Hoffman wasn't afraid to kill off characters that we have grown to like in favor of the plot. And I loved the killer. He reminded me of the Gardener from The Butterfly Garden. In fact, this whole book reminded me of The Butterfly Garden and I loved it. Picasso was unnerving, but he was the perfect mix of cool and creepy to make a really awesome villain. 

I also liked how the cyber-predator parts didn't seem too preachy. Instead, they were portrayed in a rather neutral light. Picasso did hunt out his victims through the internet, but I didn't find myself turned off by the abundance and preachiness of internet safety tips or whatever else the internet cops lecture schoolkids about. I also mentioned above that I wasn't sure I'd like this book by the prologue. I thought this novel was going into preach mode about evangelical preachers and feminism and all that. It didn't, and I appreciate that the book didn't go in that direction, especially after Silent Child. 

I do have some complaints, though. My first and most obvious one is the time it takes place because the social media and overall attitudes towards the internet were everywhere. It's established early on that Lainey is a big Twilight fan, and at one point she makes a reference to New Moon (the movie) coming out, which was in 2009. However, Lainey was born in 1998, which would make her 12 in 2011 and 13 in 2012 (not sure if she's 12 or 13 in this book). And then, the detectives mention Snapchat, which wasn't really a thing until (well, technically 2016) 2014, in the same breath as AOL, which stopped being a thing in like 2009, maybe earlier. I believe Myspace showed up too. There was also confusing references to both Instagram and chat rooms, and then I decided to stop trying to figure it out because I was giving myself a headache.

It's just funny to me that I can't pin down a specific timeline because there are other aspects that are so meticulously researched. Like the fact that the brand of paint Picasso uses- Winsor and Newton- is a legitimate brand. Of course, it's also a very popular and well known brand that almost every artist uses, but still. Other things I've noticed is that a ton of things are explained to us. Hoffman takes long breaks from the narrative to tell us things and explain why the detectives are doing what they are doing. It's appreciated, but the transitions between the explaining and the narrative are nonexistent, making it stick out like a sore thumb. Also, a lot of the cop dialogue sounded like it was straight out of a cop TV show, but I wasn't too bothered by that.

I did think it was funny that Hoffman clearly has a flair for the dramatic. Like when Lainey gets kidnapped while Vincent Price laughs maniacally in the background, that was fabulous. We also get a car chase ending in a dramatic fiery crash and oh my God it's fantastic. Also side note: the online name the Picasso uses is TheCaptain, or in Spanish ElCapitan. That cracks me up because it makes me think of Kyle McLaughlin's character in How I Met Your Mother where he's given himself the name The Captain and he's obsessed with boats and Marshall has that great moment where he shows that the eyes of The Captain don't quite match up with his smile and the whole scene is just comedy gold.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book. It's no literary work of art, but it's still so much fun to read. I'll definitely pick up more of Jilliane Hoffman- a crime thriller writer whose books are easy to read and who knows how to write a good, disturbing villain? Sign me up!

8-8.5 out of 10