The most effective writing strategy employed by Cooney in this plot-driven narrative of mystery and suspense is a series of flashbacks into Janie's memory. The milk carton incident triggers a specific memory about the dress the little girl is wearing.
"She remembered that dress . . . how the collar itched . . . remembered the fabric; it was summer fabric; the wind blew through it . . . remembered how those braids swung like red silk against her cheeks."
Frequently these flashbacks, usually signaled by Cooney with italics, are tripped by an event or object in present time. As Janie and Reeve are about to eat ice cream sundaes, she remembered her abduction in the mall when a woman with "long straight cascading hair" tempts her with an ice cream sundae. Janie refers.....
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