Deadline by Simon Kernick

                                    
                                    


'We've got your daughter.' 

"It's evening, you're back late from work - and the house is in darkness. You step inside, and the phone rings. You answer it - and your world turns upside down. Your fourteen-year-old daughter's been taken, and her kidnappers demand half a million pounds in cash. They give you 48 hours to raise the money, and warn you that if you call the police, she'll die. Trying desperately to remain calm, you realise that your husband - the man you married only two years previously - is also missing. But he can't be involved in your daughter's abduction. Or can he? As your nightmare begins, you can be certain of only two things: that you will do anything to get your daughter back alive - and that time is running out ..."

Ha, the synopsis doesn't name anyone! Thats an art!:P..sorry couldn't help but notice..

Okay.. my review..Andrea Devern, big-shot business woman, daughter gets kidnapped. Kidnappers want ransom money-she gets it together but breaks the rule of "not telling someone". So when she gives them the money, they take it but don't give her the daughter back. So a second time they demand the same amount..its 2 million dollars..by the way! This time the police end up getting involved and things get complicated..

I like Crime fiction, so one brownie rating for Deadline for falling under that genre. But otherwise the plot was very okay-okay, it was a looooong story which got quite boring. There were two protagonists- Andrea and the cop Bolt. In the beginning it was Andrea, until Bolt steps in and hogs the limelight. Emma-the kidnapped daughter got two-three chapters. I didn't enjoy the book very much, it was slow i would say...In my opinion pace makes or breaks a Crime fiction novel. This one the end was not predictable but it was annoyingly slow-it had a lot of unnecessary detail. But i kept going because i wanted to know what happens to Emma, and how does it happen. Otherwise there wasn't much excitement in the book..it was dull.

But some of the situation descriptions were good, they got me on the edge of  my seat or on the verge of annoyance. 

But his other bestselling novel-his Debut-Relentless sounds interesting and so does Target! 

So a 2 on 5 for Deadline..I really should work out a rating system!