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Loading... Hostage: A Novelby Robert Crais
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  mazda502001 | Dec 22, 2009 |  I read this book as quickly as I've ever read a book, in two days, since the story grabbed me and pulled me in. The main character is a burned out hostage negotiator who thinks he has semi-retired to a job as a rural police chief. It quickly turns out that 3 hostages (2 are children) will be killed if he can't save them, and his own family is threatened at the same time. This is very skillfully written, the characters are believable and I definitely give it a five, although most well written mysteries will get a four from me. (  ) hangen | Sep 26, 2009 | Genre: Crime/thriller Setting: Californian suburb, USA No. of pages: 385 Part of a series: no This is a standalone crime thriller from author Robert Crais, who has been delighting fans for years with many books featuring his detective duo of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. This book follows Jeff Talley, an ex SWAT and hostage negotiator, who after a boy dies on his watch decides to take the sleepy backwater job of police chief in a quiet Californian suburb. Nothing ever happens there, until one nightmare day when armed robbers break into a house and hold the people inside hostage.... That short synopsis gives away a lot less than what's on the back of the book - be warned. There's a lot more to the story, several excellent plots fused together to make so much more than your average crime novel. The character of Jeff Talley is a well drawn character, with a believable back story. All of the other characters are convincing too, the bit part characters are not your usual cardboard cut-outs. The writing is high quality without being overly descriptive, and the dialogue is very realistic. The chapters are quite short and snappy, which adds to the book's page turning qualities. I read this book in three days, and was late to work today because I just had to finish it. ( ) nakmeister | Mar 18, 2009 | my least favorite (  ) fordbarbara | Sep 18, 2008 | Deutsche Erstveröffentlichung Übersetzt vonb Andreas Heckmann (  ) oenty | Nov 10, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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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
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:15 -0400)
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Back Cover Blurb:
Jeff Talley left his high-stress job with the LAPD where 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 L.A.'s renegade Mafia family - and they don't want the police involved..... (