PRETTY GIRLS is one of the best books published in 2015 thus far. It also may be one of the most controversial, for reasons I will go into at some length in my closing paragraph. It’s one thing to know and/or be aware at some level that evil exists in the world in many different forms. It’s quite another to have the manifestation of it put right in your face so that you can’t look away. Yet that is precisely where it needs to be. You may be shocked, startled or even offended by some of the imagery here. But you’ll never forget it, and hopefully you'll act upon it.

This is a stand-alone work, geographically linked to but otherwise separated from Slaughter’s excellent, long-running Will Trent/Grant County series. Things get rolling pretty quickly when an impulsive, after-dinner assignation between a husband and wife results in the wife in near-hysterics and the husband on a morgue-bound ambulance. The husband is Paul Scott, a fabulously successful and extremely wealthy Atlanta architect. Paul is obsessive-compulsive to a fault, planning everything five steps ahead…except, it seems, for the attack that left his body being transported out of an alley on a stretcher and his wife sobbing.

"PRETTY GIRLS is one of the best books published in 2015 thus far.... While a work of fiction, it has the power in its message to literally save lives, if someone reading it becomes aware of the smiling predators who wait in the shadows for the unwary."

Claire, though well-suited for the task of being Paul’s trophy wife, is no stranger to tragedy. Her oldest sister, Julia, was abducted almost two decades previously and never seen again. The incident rippled outward, tearing their family asunder. Their parents eventually divorced, and their father, obsessed with investigating Julia’s disappearance on his own, eventually committed suicide. Claire, meanwhile, subsequently became estranged from her older sister, Lydia, whose life became a train wreck in the wake of Julia’s disappearance. Lydia, a recovering addict and the single mother of a teenager, has a much different life from Claire, but it’s one that’s satisfying for her, both because of and despite all of its challenges.

The two sisters encounter each other over Paul’s fresh grave in a very ironic and momentous meeting. Neither is especially pleased to see the other, but it’s an opening. One thing leads to another, and Claire rapidly finds that the man to whom she was married and thought she knew so well had been leading a very shocking and different life, which will affect Claire and Lydia to their very core, putting both of them (and others) in terrible danger. They find themselves pursued by individuals on both sides of the law and unable to trust anyone --- including, to some degree, each other --- as they try to get to the truth concerning what’s happening to them and what happened to Julia.

The plot, while easy to follow --- Slaughter’s narrative, as always, is first-rate --- corkscrews magnificently throughout the book. She doesn’t just upend the china cabinet and kick it down the stairs; she also jumps up and down on it a few times before story's end. Anyone who forgets to breathe a few times while reading should forgive themselves. It’s understandable.

The journey on which Slaughter takes her readers is a graphic and horrific one. The book will be difficult for the faint-hearted, though perhaps it is that group that needs it the most. While a work of fiction, it has the power in its message to literally save lives, if someone reading it becomes aware of the smiling predators who wait in the shadows for the unwary. Do an Internet search sometime on the number of people who disappear without a trace and under suspicious circumstances; this is not something that happens to someone else or someone else’s child. Read PRETTY GIRLS and be wary. Strongly recommended, with caution for extreme situations.