Annalise is thirty, single and touting her newest "Blakely Doll" on a TV talk show. Her mother started the specialty line doll business and committed her life to it, always to the exclusion of all others. The first casualty had apparently been Annalise's father who has since remarried and has a son whom she has never met. Annalise herself has succumbed in a strange way to her mother's drive by permitting herself to become embroiled in devoting her life to the business and keeping it vibrant to the exclusion of all other things.

Having inherited the business Annalise is steeped in guilt when sales drop and she begins to realize that "collector dolls" have a waning appeal in present day culture. Her few friends are trying to tell her to get a life but she remains committed to the business and to her long time employees.

Life begins to change when her friend sets her up with Tyler King a homicide detective. She feels a spark rarely experienced and this relationship begins to flourish. During the same time her father makes his first true familial gesture by inviting her for a two week vacation with him, his wife and son Charlie later in the summer.

Charlie takes matters into his own hands and ends up at Annalise's business/ condo apartment determined to forge a relationship with his half sister. This relationship is probably the warmest and most genuine part of the book.

Out of the blue, Annalise receives a present from an unknown sender. It is a vintage Blakely doll, dressed as a bride, with the note that the sender has his or her own now, and does not need this one. At the same time across town a missing girl is found dead by the side of the road dressed as a bride. Tyler is the detective in charge. Thereafter another missing girl is found dead dressed as a flapper. Again a vintage Blakely doll is received by Annalise, this time the one known as Fannie Flapper.

The connection is eventually made between the use of her mother's dolls to recreate an image which a murdered female then becomes. It does not take much to make the leap to realize that perhaps Annalise could become a target.

The story segues between scenes seamlessly, however little effort is expended to use the settings available in Kansas City. The ageless conflict in characters who are police officers or firemen pitted against the ugliness of their jobs versus the establishment of lasting relationships is aired here, but in a predictable and usual fashion. Although the characters are fairly well developed the novel lacks the zing, tension or excitement that Cassidy is capable of delivering.

-- Thea Davis