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Jeff Talley, the police chief in a small Southern California town, still has nightmares about the young hostage who died when he made the wrong call in his previous job as a negotiator for an LAPD SWAT team. Now, three smalltime punks go on the run after a grocery store robbery and killing in Talley's town. Soon his deputies have surrounded the house where the inept robbers have taken Walter Smith and his two children hostage, and Talley's back in his worst dream again: until the county sheriff's full-fledged SWAT team arrives and takes over, he has to negotiate for their lives.
Crais keeps the point of view moving from Talley to the punks to the hostages as the situation unfolds in the house and on the ground. Then he ratchets up the dramatic tension: there's something in Walter Smith's house that a ruthless Mob boss wants, and he'll sacrifice anyone to get it--which puts Talley's own family in danger. The action speeds to its climax with the velocity of a heat-seeking missile, which makes it almost criminal to slow down long enough to savor the great writing. Take this passage, from a scene when Talley's face-to-face with the man who's holding his own wife and daughter hostage:
Talley ... had stepped into the Zone. It was a place of white noise where emotions reigned and reason was meager. Anger and rage were nonstop tickets; panic was an express. He had been all day coming to this, and here he was: the SWAT guys used to talk about it. You went to the Zone, you lost your edge. You'd lose your career; you'd get yourself killed, or, worse, somebody else.Crais belongs in that tier of writers whose novelistic gifts transcend the thriller category--writers like Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, and James Lee Burke. Hostage is a breakout. --Jane Adams
"From the Hardcover edition.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Jeff Talley left his high-stress job as a frontline negotiator with the LAPD's SWAT unit when he failed to prevent a man from killing his family and then himself. Talley takes the chief-of-police job in a sleepy, affluent suburb, but he is soon plunged back into the high-pressure world he left behind when three young men, fleeing a robbery, burst into a home and take the family hostage.For Talley, the nightmare has barely begun. Because this isn't just any house. It belongs to an accountant who launders money for LA's renegade Mafia family - and they don't want the police involved. Would you sacrifice another family to save your own?'If you're new to Crais HOSTAGE is a brilliant intro. Read this, then read all his others' DAILY MIRROR Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781409138242
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9781409138242
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 400 pages. 8.70x5.08x0.98 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __1409138240
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Book Description Condition: New. 2012. Paperback. Would you sacrifice another family to save your own? Num Pages: 400 pages. BIC Classification: FF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 201 x 131 x 25. Weight in Grams: 250. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9781409138242
Book Description Condition: New. 2012. Paperback. Would you sacrifice another family to save your own? Num Pages: 400 pages. BIC Classification: FF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 201 x 131 x 25. Weight in Grams: 250. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9781409138242