One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Hunter turns the stereotype of the unstoppable, mechanical serial killer upside-down in her latest thriller (after Blood Music), in which a murderer of young boys becomes confused when he mistakenly abducts a young girl. After nine-year-old Emily Lookinlanddisappears from a New York City park, her single mother, Laurie, and the police fear the girl has been kidnapped by the ""Chocolate Man."" Notorious for using the promise of chocolate to lure little boys, the Chocolate Man has molested and killed seven of them over a period of several years. Meanwhile, at his anonymous house in Queens, slight, bland George Riehle (the Chocolate Man) struggles to deal with Emily's troubling girlhood and her probing questions. Befuddled by his error, the meticulous, obsessive-compulsive madman finds himself unable to kill the girl even as the cops and some suspicious neighbors close in on him. When an elderly neighbor confronts Riehle, he adds another murder to his grisly list, tightening the suspense. Laurie herself ultimately forces the Chocolate Man's hand when she tracks him down after the police investigation flags. While the high-speed chase through Long Island that leads to the climax is surprising and satisfying, what really elevates Hunter's yarn above genre formula is the odd relationship that evolves between Emily and her abductor. Although some readers may find the girl too childish and innocent for her age, Hunter's moment-to-moment account of a monster and his prey is both gripping suspense fiction and a moving psychological portrait. (May)