Format: Paperback
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Publisher: Corgi Adult
Hero: Mike Bolt
Heroine: Andrea Devern
Published On: August 26, 2008
Started On: August 7, 2009
Finished On: August 8, 2009

“Time only matters when its running out” rings true for this novel that takes the reader on a relentless ride. The story begins when successful businesswoman Andrea Devern returns home from work one evening to get a phone call on her mobile that gives the worst possible news a mother could ever hear. Her fourteen year old daughter has been kidnapped and half a million pounds in cash has to be paid up in order  to get her daughter back.

Together with her daughter, her husband Pet Phelan who isfive years younger than her in debt to loan sharks for gambling heavily and living  the high life off Andrea’s wealth, disappears together with Emma as well. Not knowing whether Pet was involved with the kidnapping, Andrea turns towards an old ‘romantic’ acquaintance from the past Jimmy Galante an individual with a violent past involved in armed robberies and murder who meets an untimely horrific demise upon trying to help Andrea with the drop off of the money.

Involvement of Jimmy angers the kidnappers and they demand for another half a million pounds before they would give Emma up. Shocked and horrified after seeing what the kidnappers had done to Jimmy, Andrea is stopped over by cops on the road and taken in for questioning after finding blood on her clothes left over from when she hugged Jimmy’s bloody corpse.

Then comes in Mike Bolt SG3 of SOCA, Serious and Organized Crime Agency who too has been involved clandestinely with Andrea in the past. Thus starts the race against time (less than 48 hours) to execute a plan to rescue Emma who could be Bolt’s daughter according to Andrea. Mike puts his career on the line for his might-be daughter in a dangerous chase to find who the kidnappers are and bring Emma back home before time runs out and Emma too could meet a horrific death at the kidnapper’s hands.

The story based on life in UK, is pretty interesting considering that most novels  that I tend to read are mostly from American authors. This is an author I am definitely going to add to my Favourite Author’s List.

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