Review: Killer by Sara Shepard

Killer

Author: Sara Shepard
Series: Pretty Little Liars, #6

Summary: ROSEWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA, SEEMS PICTURE PERFECT, BUT PICTURES OFTEN LIE--AND SO DO ROSEWOOD'S FOUR PRETTIEST GIRLS.

Hanna's on a mission to corrupt Rosewood's youth--starting with a very attractive sophomore. Aria's snooping into her boyfriend's past. Spencer's stealing . . . from her family. And pure little Emily's abstaining from abstinence.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. These pretty little liars should be careful. Sure, the old A is dead, but there's a new A in town turning up the heat. And this time Rosewood's going to burn. -A

Review

NOTE: This review contains spoilers of the previous Pretty Little Liars books, as well as the book in review. If you do not wish to read any spoilers about this series, I suggest reading my review of Pretty Little Liars instead. If you have read this series, or you don't mind spoilers, then you may proceed! :)

What if, all of a sudden, you could remember every single second of your entire life? And not just the major events everyone remembers--little things, too. Like that you and your best friend bonded over hating the smell of rubber cement in third-grade art class, or that your eighth-grade crush was palming a soccer ball the first time you saw him.
But with your flawless memory, you'd have to remember the bad things, too, and the past could get a while lot uglier. Someone who seems like an ally now? Look again--could be they weren't as nice as you thought. A friend you remember as always having your back? Oops! On closer inspection, not so much.
If you four girls in Rosewood were suddenly given perfect memories, they might know better who to trust and who to stay away from. Then again, maybe their pasts would make even less sense than before. Memory's a fickle thing. And sometimes we're doomed to repeat our mistakes, especially the ones we've forgotten all too quickly. -from Killer by Sara Shepard

Three years ago, Alison DiLaurentis vanished without a trace, leaving four girls in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, feeling lonely, lost and confused: Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin. Now, three years later, the girls are on a search for the truth: Who killed Ali? And being the four prettiest, and most wanted, girls in Rosewood you can bet there will be a lot trouble along the way.

This series is really heating up. At this point in the story, the cops are looking for Ian Thomas, who had been on trial for Ali's murder, but who has escaped from house arrest. Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily find him dead in the woods behind Spencer's house the night of a charity event. Hanna sees a hooded figure in the woods, but doesn't see the face of this person. They all rush back to the house searching for Darren Wilden, the police officer in charge of Ali's murder case, but he is no where to be found. After several minutes of searching, they finally find and lead him out into the woods to the spot where they found Ian. But Ian's body is suddenly gone. 

"Oh my God," Spencer whispered.
Ian's body was . . . gone.
She took a dizzy step back clutching her hand to her head. She blinked hard and looked again. Ian's body had been here a half hour ago, but now the spot was bare except for a fine layer of snow. But . . . how was that possible?
Emily clapped her hands over her mouth and made a gurgling sound. "Spencer," she whispered urgently.
Aria let out a cross between a moan and a shriek. "Where is he?" she cried, looking around the woods frantically. "He was just here."
Hanna's face was pale. She didn't say a word.
Behind them was an eerie, high-pitched squawking sound. Everyone jumped, and Hanna gripped the candlestick tightly. It was only Wilden's walkie-talkie, which was attached to his belt. He gazed at the girls' expressions, and then at the empty spot on the ground.
"Maybe you have the wrong place," Wilden said.
Spencer shook her head, feeling pressure rising up into her chest. "No. He was here." She staggered crookedly down the shallow slope and knelt on the half-thawed grass. Some of it seemed flattened, as if something weighty had recently been lying there. She reached out her fingers to touch the ground, but then pulled back, afraid. She couldn't bring herself to touch a place where a dead body had just been.
"Maybe Ian was hurt, not dead." Wilden fidgeted with one of the metal snaps on his jacket. "Maybe he ran away after you left."
Spencer widened her eyes, daring to consider the possibility.
Emily shook her head fast. "There was no way he was just hurt."
"He was definitely dead," Hanna agreed shakily. "He was . . . blue."
"Maybe someone moved the body," Aria piped up. "We've been gone from the woods for over a half hour. That would've given someone time."
"There was someone else out here," Hanna whispered. "They stood over me when I fell."
Spencer whiled around and stared at her. "What?" Sure, the last half hour had been crazed, but Hanna should have said something.
Emily gaped at Hanna too. "Did you see who it was?"
Hanna gulped loudly. "Whoever it was had a hood on. I think it was a guy, but I guess I don't know. Maybe he dragged Ian's body somewhere else."
"Maybe it was A," Spencer said ,her heart thudding in her chest. She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out her Sidekick, and showed A's menacing text to Wilden. He had to go.
Wilden glanced at Spencer's phone, then handed it back to her. His mouth was taut. "I don't know how many ways I have to say this. Mona is dead. This A is a copycat. Ian escaping is hardly a secret--the whole country knows about it." - pages 16-18 of Killer by Sara Shepard

Wilden continues to chastise the girls, making them believe that maybe they were being hysterical. He claims that he will get a search party together to search the woods for Ian, or Ian's body, but he has to follow "procedure". It is the next morning before the search even begins, and after coming up with nothing, the cops claim that the girls were lying about Ian's body and that Ian had contacted his family, alive and well.

The girls are baffled: What are the cops hiding, and why are they making the girls look like lying lunatics? Why was Wilden acting so strangely in the woods, and why hadn't he called the cops as soon as the girls told him that they had found Ian's body? Why did he wait until morning to start the search? Was it really procedure, or was he hiding something?

They try to go on with their normal lives. Emily continues to see her Christian boyfriend, Isaac, and gets intimate with him, only for problems to occur in their relationship when his mom gets involved. Hanna's father has forced her to befriend Kate after a little incident at the charity event, making Hanna do everything with Kate. Wherever Kate went, Hanna was to follow. To get back at Kate, Hanna decides to compete with her for a certain sophomores affections. Spencer is feeling unwelcome in her own home. Everything is being taken from her, including the 2 million dollars that was supposed to have been left to her by her Nana had she been a natural-born grandchild. Ever since the reading of the will, her parents have all but kicked her out of the house. Now Spencer is looking for her real parents through a website, hoping to discover her true family and finally feel accepted. But will she find what she's looking for? Aria's old crush on Ali's brother Jason is resurfacing. She's ignoring the warnings of her friends that there is something wrong with Jason and is secretly dating him behind their backs. But behind Jason's cool facade, there's something darker lurking under the surface. Something that even A knows about. Will Aria discover what it is before it's too late?

The girls continue to search for answers: Where is Ian really at? Is he alive like the cops say, or is he lying dead in a ditch somewhere? What is Jason hiding? What is Wilden and the cops covering up? Who is the new A, and why does this person seem to be helping them? Isn't A supposed to be the bad guy? Who killed Ali, and what will happen when they finally learn the truth? If you thought it was crazy before, you haven't seen anything yet. Killer takes you on a crazy ride, giving you a little bit at a time until all of the pieces are slowly put together, and then it all goes out in flames. Have the girls finally discovered the truth, and are they really seeing what they think they are seeing? This book leaves off on a major cliffhanger. You won't believe what you are reading. You'll think you've finally gone crazy too. There is so much drama, as usual, and these four Rosewood girls are always up to no good. You just can't help but get sucked in to the madness, and you're constantly looking for clues within the pages as to who might really have killed Ali, wondering if A is leading them to the truth or on a wild goose-chase to keep them off the real killers tracks. Hopefully, the next installment will give us a little more information. Sometimes it feels like it's going in circles. You think they have finally discovered the truth, only to find out it was one of A's little games. I guess the only way to know the truth is to keep reading..

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