Sixteen year old Sally Anders seems to be a typical teen. She sings in the choir, babysits, has occasional fights with her brother, but when she doesn't return from babysitting, a search is organized. Her body is found where she had been babysitting. She had been raped and murdered.

The story is told in brief sequences of people's thoughts and reactions to Sally's murder. It gives a picture of small town life in New England. The town has a ficticious name but is actually Guilford, Connecticut where the author lived and served elected post.

Waugh gives the reader a step by step approach to what people were doing just before and after Sally's murder. After the initial shock and grief of her death, the response seemed to be, how could this happen here?

With the first person approach, the story reads more like a group of newspaper reports and as result isn't very suspenseful.

The book was written in 1989, the same year that Hillary Waugh was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. ( )