Suffer the Children

The death of 15-year-old Rachel Donahue, a recalcitrant resident at a Cleveland juvenile detention facility, kick starts bestseller Black’s well-crafted fourth thriller featuring forensic expert Maggie Gardiner (after Perish). Rachel fell three floors to the bottom of a stairwell, but whether she was pushed is unclear. As more residents die under suspicious circumstances, Maggie and homicide detective Jack Renner realize that a murderer is loose in the locked facility, where groups of children are carefully segregated and access to them is strictly supervised and limited. That the potential victims can be as lethal as the hunter stalking them complicates the case, as do Maggie’s fears that Jack is hiding a terrible secret. The pressure on Maggie only increases when her ex-husband, Det. Rick Gardiner, is assigned to investigate Jack’s past—something neither Maggie nor Jack can afford to have revealed. Black keeps the suspense high throughout. [em]Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Agency. (Sept.) [/em]