Joy Fielding: Life Penalty (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
She's searching for the man who killed her daughter. But will he find her first?

In a novel that grips like a waking nightmare, master storyteller Joy Fielding creates a searing examination of a horrifying crime, the limits of the law, and a woman's terrifying journey into a killer's twisted mind.

In one tragic afternoon everything changed. Until then, Gail Walton had considered herself lucky. With a successful husband, two daughters, and a house in the New Jersey suburbs, Gail lived a safe and predictable life. Then the unthinkable happened: her six-year-old daughter Cindy was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered.

Consumed by grief and rage, Gail has retreated into herself. Her family and friends fear she's losing her grip on reality. The police warn her to let them handle the investigation. But not one of them knows the truth: that Gail has a description of the killer, a plan to set herself up as a decoy, and a room in a run-down boardinghouse. And Gail Walton has just bought herself a gun...

Joy Fielding: Life Penalty. Dell, ISBN: 0440223385 (October, 1998), 392 p., $7.99.