Lucy Rosen has moved to Florida to get away from her ex-husband and hopes for an improvement in her relationship with her 12 year-old son, Keith. Instead Keith is getting worse. He seems to have a compulsion to do the wrong thing, he hates the heat and life in Florida. On the day when their neighbor is brutally murdered, Keith finds her baby in a laundry basket and runs off with her to protect her. Now he is being tracked by Julian Cash and his K9 police dogs. Julian is a loner also with a bad rep from adolescence. His connection to this family changes everyone by the end. Very good story. ( )

In a nutshell: a woman runs away from her abusive husband, taking her infant daughter to Florida. It is not a spoiler alert to say she doesn't stay hidden for long and winds up dead. The daughter goes missing. Another woman in the same apartment complex has a surly son who has also gone missing. Police think this is not a coincidence. Now mom needs to find the identity of the murdered woman, find the missing baby, and clear her son's name in the process. The magical realism in this story is an angel sitting up in a tree. This other-worldly figure of bright light doesn't factor into the story all that much. As an aside (albeit a snarky one), another element of magical realism could be the jetlag Lucy claims to experience traveling from Florida to New York...which are in the same time zone.
Confessional: I am a stickler for human nature that makes sense. I didn't get Julian Cash at all. I got Lucy Rosen even less. I'll tackle Julian first. As a former foster kid, Julian is riddled by guilt over a car accident he survived, but his cousin did not. Hence the angel in the tree. Julian is now a K9 cop with very little to say. The chip on his shoulder is the size of a boulder. He has so many issues that he is described like an exaggerated caricature. As mentioned before, a young mother has been murdered and her under-two-year-old baby has gone missing. It's up to Julian and his vicious dogs to find the infant. Except, Julian falls for mother of angsty son, Lucy, and decides he needs to drive her car from Florida to New York. And speaking of Lucy. Her son has been fingered for the crime so she figures the only way to clear his name is to find the real killer. She doesn't know the baby-mama's name but what a coincidence! She was married to someone Lucy went to high school with in upstate New York! The story really started to fall apart when Lucy traced her Florida neighbor back to her hometown because I didn't care for Lucy's treatment of her ex-husband, Evan. Evan has moved on and is even dating someone new, yet Lucy doesn't see anything wrong with 1) staying with Evan, 2) borrowing his car (because remember, she left hers in Florida), 3) making Evan take her to their high school reunion (?!) even though he had plans to take the girlfriend), and 4) inviting Julian into Evan's home to take a shower and have breakfast. ( )

Liked this. I really love Hoffman's ability to immerse the reader in the setting and the characters are quirky but believable. Sort of. Okay, didn't really connect with the policeman guy. And (no spoilers) I found the story sort of deflating by the end.

I was a bit disappointed, to be honest, especially after hearing such good things from some friends. Worth a read if you're a fan, but ... meh. ( )

Verity, FL is the home to more divorced women from New York than any other city in Florida. Lucy Rosen now lives there with her son, Keith. She becomes a little friendly with some of the other women in the building and even shares some form of history with some of them.
Keith hates living in Verity. He is consistently in trouble, and Lucy doesn't know what to do about it. One night, there is a murder in the building and Lucy knows that the woman is the one who was always in the laundry room, caring so hard for her infant daughter. Now, Keith and the infant girl are missing.
Lucy comes into contact with Julian Cash and his dogs, Arrow & Loretta. These dogs are so vicious that most people avoid Julian and the dogs. There is a siting of Keith and the infant girl and we go from there.
Well written and a good story. ( )

3.5/5 ( )