Facing head-on the issues of what the job does to cops, this novel focuses on what happens when a tough-as-nails female police officer confronts a child's death. A little girl, eight to nine years old, is discovered, naked and brutally murdered, in Central Park. Lieutenant Julia Brennan, supervisor of C Squad, Manhattan North Homicide, is called to the scene and instantly dubs the body "little girl blue," the first step in an involvement with the case that threatens her hard-won professionalism. Brennan and her team's investigation uncovers disturbing evidence of how children, through slavery and pedophilia, are victimized for huge profits. When Brennan's own teenage daughter is stalked as a warning to Brennan to keep away from the profit-making machine, tension skyrockets. Cray (first seen last year's Bad Lawyer) is deft with procedure, a cunning plotter, and especially skilled at showing the cracks behind a professional facade. Connie Fletcher
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