Flora's Reviews > Cruel Sacrifice

Aphrodite Jones is a pretty hit-or-miss true crime writer, but with this one she scored a home run. It's not well-written in the slightest; it's pulpy, per the genre; it's seamy and sordid in every way. But somehow the story itself bypasses the inner security-systems of those of us with a high threshold for this sort of thing, as do the mug shots of the perky, smiling killers, which are indistinguishable from yearbook photos. It's about a clique of teenage girls in Indiana who murdered a twelve-year-old schoolmate named Shasta Sharer. And why? Because she had started dating the ringleader's ex-girlfriend. The ringleader's name? Melinda Loveless. One of her accomplices? Hope Rippey. (If Dickens were alive today, this would be his source material; Little Nell, indeed.) And so on.