Dooms Day Book (Eleven Hours - Paullina Simons)

Member Name: kirstymack80

Product:	Eleven Hours - Paullina Simons
Date:	20/03/05 (700 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: gripping, scary

Disadvantages: scary, violence

Didi Wood is two weeks away from having her third child. She’s restless and decides to spend some time at the mall to do a little shopping. Dallas in the summer is no fun, it’s scorching hot outside and the mall is air conditioned. Quickly, Didi is laden with bags as she travels from shop to shop and decides to stop off for a pretzel.

At the stand a man approaches her. He looks at her in a familiar way and this unsettles Didi. He chats to her and she is eager to get away – she has a bad feeling about him. She does a little more spending, checking that he is not following her and decides to bring her shopping trip to a close. She phones Rich, her husband, and leaves a message on his answerphone asking him to meet her early for their lunch date. She wants to get away from the mall – and the strange man.

She leaves for the car park and the man from earlier is there. She is scared – and with good reason. Calmly but firmly he tells her to get into his car. Didi glances around, there’s no one in the parking lot to help her. She is being abducted in broad daylight, and what does this stranger plan on doing with her?

That’s the first 26 pages of ‘Eleven Hours’ and believe me, in this book you relive every single minute of Didi’s kidnapping!

* What I thought *

Phew. This was horrible. The chapters are headed with times, starting at 11.45 and ending, yes, 11 hours later. The abduction takes front stage and quickly the reader becomes involved. The story is also shown from Rich’s point of view and the answerphone message he receives from Didi, detecting something is amiss and that she sounds strange. His wife is sometimes late for their dates, but never early, and this alone tells him something isn’t quite right. So we see his worry and anxiety, as well as Didi’s.

The stranger is eerily creepy. He’s straight out of a movie, he’s calm, controlling, he’s menacing and the reader has no idea why he’s taken Didi. One thing is clear: he doesn’t want money.

This is a short book, at just over 300 pages and yet I couldn’t read large chunks of it at a time. I found it really unnerving.

Told in ‘real time’, this is a slow and thorough account of an abduction. Didi needs to gather all her inner strength and her belief in God helps to guide her. She keeps her attacker talking, trying to glean information from him. Her slow acceptance of the situation is difficult to read, the fact she may not see her baby born, or her husband and other children again. Her feelings of sadness take over from her being scared and hers becomes a story of survival.

As time passes, the stranger becomes more desperate and violence rears its ugly head. Sometimes he’s cruel, unable to control his temper, other times he is pitiful and crying. The reader quickly learns to dislike him as he torments and belittles her.

Part of a good book to me is whether you believe the story. The fact that Texas is the largest state was a good location – it’s easy to ‘disappear’ there and drive for miles without anything seeming untoward. The language and stilted conversations between Didi and the Stranger came across naturally to me, as she is afraid to anger him. To break up the tension the alternate chapters are shown as scenes with Scott, the FBI agent in charge of the abduction, and Rich, Didi’s husband. Again their relationship quickly develops and the reader senses Rich’s frustration and growing anxiety as the hours pass. He’s angry and upset and Scott takes charge of the situation, determined to get Didi back.

The characters are strong, and it’s a battle of wills as the Abductor takes on a headstrong Didi. His taunting manner is childlike at times, yet he is quick to turn on her if he thinks she’s plotting something.

* Overall *

I’ve found this really hard to rate. I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ this book, I think you’re more likely to endure it. I did find it compelling reading but it’s a difficult read, I suppose because it’s every woman’s nightmare and this *could* happen. There are some truly nasty scenes of violence, the stranger is clearly disturbed and takes his anger out on Didi. However, the story has been done before, and will be done again.

This book was a present from my friend in Australia, it was titled one of the six ‘Best Reads’ in the Thriller Series alongside contenders such as Michael Crichton and Val McDermid. I’m not sure if I’d have read the back cover I would’ve chosen this, purely from the Scared Wuss’s point of view. But the relationships built up between Attacker and Victim and Rich and Scott were convincing and these alone presented the backbone to a commendable book.

* Other info about the book *

RRP £6.99 (play.com have it for £5.49 delivered)
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers (UK)
ISBN 0006551114
320 pages, paperback

* Other books by Paullina Simons *

Tatiana & Alexander
Tully
Red Leaves

* Verdict *

I’m going to give it 4 stars. I have to sit on the fence on this one purely because towards the end there were some events that unfolded that I felt Simons was either really brave to include, or stupid. I’m afraid I can’t really elaborate on that for fear of ruining the end – but those who have read it will know what I mean!

If you enjoy reading horror then you will probably like this book. I do read a lot of true crime and in the past have read Stephen King and Richard Laymon, so I’m not a stranger to this kind of book. However in those books there are flights of fancy, this book is more realistic. I will read this author again and have, in fact, bought ‘Red Leaves’ already!

Recommended if yer hard enough! ;-)

Thanks for reading.

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