The first book I read by Simonk Kernick was Relentless, I thought it was a good read. I then picked up Severed, which just wasn't as good! I was put off Deadline for a while because of Severed, but this is what I thought.

The book doesn't tend to start out well. You don't get time to know the characters too well, and when you start to get to know them, you find out a twist.

It starts with a woman, Andrea Devern coming home. The minute she walks through the door her mobile rings, and a voice over the phone tells her that her daughter has been kidnapped, she has 48 hours to raise 1.5 million, and to not involve anyone, especially the police. She frantically tries to call her husband, which is her daughter's step-father, but to no avail and she realises he's also disappeared. You spend the rest of the book trying to figure out if he's involved with the kidnapping or not.

There is a random little chapter obviously in the mind of a man behind the kidnap, where he stabs a young woman. You don't find out the relevance of this until the very end of the book.

Simon Kernick does a very good job of drawing you in, and throwing in plenty of unexpected twists, which sometimes does leaving it feel unrealisitic, but on the whole his books are fast paced page turners, Deadline comes into that category.

If you haven't read anything by Kernick before I recommend starting with Relentless.