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Overview
A new Nissan plant is coming to the depressed Rust Belt town of Baxter, and Captain Delia Mariola has been busy cleaning up the crime-addled city ever since the deal was announced. But when the 15-year-old daughter of the lead bidder on the construction project—a wealthy out-of-towner—suddenly disappears, and it becomes clear that a professional kidnapping ring may be responsible, Delia realizes that the factory’s influx of cash could bring with it an entirely new sort of danger, never before considered in this working class milieu.
Though Elizabeth’s abduction was well-planned and bearing the mark of an experienced team, her captors could not have anticipated the quick and clever brilliance of the exceptionally smart teen. From the trunk of the car where she is held, she soon devises a clever trick to get cryptic messages to those who love her back down the highway in Baxter. The only problem is that the messages might be too cryptic even for their recipients to decipher. If Delia has any hope of bringing the girl home unharmed, she’ll have to crack the code and discover the meaning behind the message. And unless she does it fast, there may be nobody left to save…
Tough, thrilling, and filled with memorable characters, The Hostage is a gritty mystery set in the same hardscrabble town as 2021’s The Yards, which Kirkus praised as "a breathless suspenser that’s also a painfully acute evocation of the wrong side of the tracks."
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781613163467 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penzler Publishers |
| Publication date: | 09/20/2022 |
| Series: | A Delia Mariola Novel |
| Pages: | 312 |
| Sales rank: | 1,122,013 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
“Please to stay cool, Quentin. Nothing to fear. Remember what we have said.”
“I hear you, okay?”
“I hear you also. I hear panic. We are two weary travelers. Remember the story. Live it.”
I see flashes of color, blue and red, through the open hole behind the dark taillight, and I hear a single elongated whoop, followed by silence as my abductors’ car first slows, then stops. Outside, the wheels of what must be a police car grind against the pavement before coming to a halt behind us. Then a door opens and footsteps approach, finally a stern voice, the voice of authority.
“Good evening, sir. May I please see your license and registration?”
“They’re in my wallet.”
“Get them.”
I seize the handle, cradling the base against my palm, curling my fingers around the inner edge, the cable tucked between my fore and middle fingers. I’m rehearsing my exit, imagining the trunk popping up, me leaping to the pavement, me running away as fast as I can while the cop deals with my kidnappers. I assume they’re armed because I don’t recall what happened to Chip, the boy I was making out with before I was taken. But I can’t imagine football-hero Chip being cowed by anything less than a gun. Myself, I remember only a cloth slapped against my face from behind and an odor that still has me nauseated.
“Have you been drinking tonight, sir?”
“No, officer.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Where are you coming from at four-twenty in the morning?”
The response seems a bit too fast, even to me. “From my mom’s. She’s been sick, so me and my fiancée were lookin’ after her until my sister came by. We’re on our way home.” I hear footsteps on the pavement, coming toward the back, then a pause. I’m telling myself to go now, but I can’t seem to move. Like when I first held the taillight wires. I tell myself to pull, pull, pull, but it feels like I’m trying to move an immovable weight.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car.”
“But . . .”
“Please step out, sir.”
Doors open on either side of the car, the little pop of the releasing locks releasing me as well. I imagine the trunk lid popping up, vaulting over the lip at the back, landing on my feet running. But it doesn’t happen that way, not even close. The trunk does open, but I jump too soon, cracking my head against the opening lid, rolling forward to hit the pavement shoulder first. Then the gunfire, two shots so loud they might be lightning strikes. I’ve failed, I know I’ve failed, and I don’t want to open my eyes, not ever again, but I can’t stop myself. My eyelids separate by themselves and I’m looking into a pair of empty blues eyes a foot away. Dead eyes, cop eyes. The blood oozing from a deep wound on the side of his neck reaches out for me. His spirit is already gone.
Though I can’t see her, the woman’s voice, as cold as it is confident, echoes in my brain. “Do not hurt the girl, Quentin. We need her whole.”