From a USA Today Bestselling author, a timely and intense new mystery.Until you know who to trust, trust no one.The disappearance of a prep school girl from an affluent family leads to a hidden world of shocking secrets. FBI Agent Victoria Heslin investigates alongside local police, but the mysteries only get deeper. Why are the girl’s parents so uncooperative? And why are the local authorities … girl’s parents so uncooperative? And why are the local authorities resisting her help?
When her efforts uncover a sex trafficking operation, Heslin enlists friend and fellow Agent Dante Rivera to go rogue and try to save the girls, before it’s too late.
Pretty Little Girls is the second book in the Agent Victoria Heslin Series by USA Today Bestselling Author Jenifer Ruff. It can be read as a standalone.
Praise from Amazon and Goodreads Reviewers:
“Captivating, relevant, impactful.”
“Eye-opening!”
“An important topic handled with taste and empathy.”
“Timely and scary!”
“Once you start you won’t be able to breathe until the end.”
“Could not put this down!”
“Timely and realistic. It hits a nerve and gets the blood boiling. Jenifer Ruff has the ability to bring you INTO the story instead of just observing it.”
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Excellent Book, can’t wait to read more by this author.
I realy enjoyed the book.
Well written book that has a good story line as well as insight to a growing problem of human trafficking.
I would read another from this author
Sad but true in our world today. Hard to put down once you start reading.
Great author.Will look for other books by same author.
Suspenseful and well-written.
This story kept me on the edge of my seat. Action packed and realistic.
Enjoyed reading this book, great characters good plot great ending!
Really good.
Great story. Loved the storyline and all the characters.
Found another favorite author!! Keeps you hooked!! As soon as I finished I looked for another one of her books to read! (‘Everett’ – another hard to put down read in a day book!)
Great second book of series, good as a standalone novel. Jennifer Ruff has a great writing style. The book gets you at page one and keeps you to the end. Wonderful suspense novel
Excellent and an eye opener!
This was a great follow up to ‘The Numbers Killer’, our first intro to Victoria Heslin. I actually enjoyed this read a little more due to the nature of the story, sexual exploitation, a very real problem today. The author creates a very believable story with just the right combination of evil , corruption and intrigue. And of course, the satisfactory wrap up in the end. All in this was a great read. Looking forward to more of Ms Heslin.
While gripping because of the story line, I found it to be very much a downer. I should have expected that because of the subject matter but it also engendered extreme cynicism. Not for the faint of heart!
Creepy to think this could really happen
“Pretty Little Girls” by Jenifer Ruff is a book I will remember for a long time. I could not put it down until the very end, reading it into the early hours of the morning. The book starts with the discovery of the body of a beautiful well-groomed teenage girl in the woods. When she is taken to the medical examiner’s office, Dr. Rebecca Boswell notes that she is well groomed, has no identity, has a strange tattoo on her neck and has no tongue. You wonder who this girl is and what has happened to her. Next, you meet Sofia and Astasia, two more beautiful, well- groomed, well-dressed teen-age girls who speak English very well and are afraid to speak their native tongue. They are in a condo awaiting a group of young football fans who are talking about their team going to the Super Bowl. Also in the room with them is a giant of a man, Svet, their bodyguard and one of their captors. He follows them closely at every party they go to, reminding them that there is no escape.The girls have been taught how to act with men and how to always appear beautiful. After catching your breath and realizing that these captive teenagers are sex slaves, forced to work for men who are paid to take them to parties and return them to wherever they are living, usually in a windowless basement, you wonder what will come next. Then you meet Emma Manning, a rich pretty fourteen year old who has been dropped off at a mall after lying to her chauffeur/personal assistant about meeting two of her girlfriends there. She says they are supposed to meet inside the mall and goes inside. She proceeds to the garage where she meets up with Damian, a handsome young man whom she has met on line. He escorts her through the garage, telling her he is looking for his car so they can go to Starbucks and talk to each other. You begin to worry that innocent Emma could end up being forced to work with Sofia and Anastasia as just another young sex slave. After Emma does not call Magda to bring her home, her family realizes something might be wrong. They call their FBI friend to help them find Emma. FBI agent Victoria Heslin is assigned to the case and eventually calls her partner, Dante Rivera to help her because the Charlotte police detective assigned to the case, Michael Connelly, does not offer the kind of help she needs and seems to be keeping her away from finding out what has happened to Emma. Emma’s parents are not helpful either, being constantly angry with each other and not wanting the FBI probing into their personal business. As I, the reader, became more involved in the story, I became really worried about Emma’s safety as well as that of Sofia and Anastasia. The two girls are worried about their friend Sasha who has disappeared. I began to realize that Sasha must be the girl Dr. Boswell had in the morgue and wondered if Sofia, Anastasia and Emma would end up there too. The girls are very afraid of Stephen and Ms. Bois, two very evil people who seem to be running the business as well as Svet and Petar, two enormous brothers from Ukraine who have been assigned to take the girls to their sex parties and threaten what would happen to them if they talked about the business or ran away. The book gave me a first hand look at what sex trafficking is really like and how prevalent it is in our country. Young girls like Sofia and Anastasia are usually followed coming from school and their are visited by the sex traffickers. Their parents’ heads are filled with how their daughters will become rich models in the United States and be able to send them all kinds of money. The girls’ heads are filled with the wonders of modeling in America and all the wonderful things that will happen to them. They are taught to speak English and not allowed to speak their native languages. They are taught how to groom themselves, how to have their hair and nails done perfectly, how to model and then how to please men. They are also taught to fear their handlers and the people who bring them to America. The book is a wonderful but sad read. I recommend it very highly.
Pretty Little Girls is a novel about human trafficking, both of girls from poor countries looking for a better life and girls here in the US. While it is set as a mystery, the disappearance of a prep school girl Emma Manning, it does a good job also tackling the topic of what happens to some of these unfortunate young people at the hands of those set out to exploit them. As other say, while the story itself is somewhat unbelievable, many parts, such as what happens to the girls, is too believable. The novel moved quickly, and made me want to keep reading. It’s the second in a series — the first does not look quite as good — and some of the characters were a little flat. I am assuming that’s because others reading book 1 (not at all necessary) may already be familiar with the heroine and her FBI partner. Good read.
Pretty Little Girls, the second novel in the Agent Victoria Heslin series, is a well-written story. In this book, the disappearance of a prep school girl turns into much more. As Victoria searches for the teenager, she uncovers a horrific sex-trafficking operation. A great thriller that will keep you reading well into the night. I look forward to the next novel in this series.
I received a free copy of this book and choose to review it voluntarily