Showing Shakespearean Detectives by Mike Ashley

After two previous best-selling thrillers, Tully and Red Leaves, American crime writer Paullina Simons' next novel, Eleven Hours, does not disappoint. Didi, a happily married, heavily pregnant Dallas housewife finds herself being abducted from a shopping mall car park in broad daylight. So close to giving birth that she is already experiencing initial contractions, Didi tries to reason with her kidnapper, a sinister young man whose pleasant features are belied by the coldness in his eyes. But her insistence only causes him to become violent. She attempts escape but her condition makes running impossible and her leering abductor knows it. Meanwhile her frantic husband has alerted the FBI, but as casualties of the kidnapper's rage begin to mount, they can barely keep up. Didi, relying on her wits and sustained by her faith in God, must save her own life, and that of her nearly-born child. Simons deftly creates flesh-and-blood characters whose strengths and weaknesses contribute to the heightening suspense, and whose wry humour brings some relief from the horrifying events. This is a perfect aeroplane or tube novel; slick, fast and gripping. --Emily Ormond