Every parents nightmare (The Abduction - Mark Gimenez)

Member Name: david_1967

Product:	The Abduction - Mark Gimenez
Date:	04/03/08 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A well written book with a brisk pace

Disadvantages: You have to really suspend your belief at times

I have just put this book down and, despite a few problems, I have to say that it was time well spent.

Mark Gimenez was born in Galveston County, Texas and attended the state university in San Marco where he earned himself a B.A. in Political Science and then law school where he also gained a degree. He practiced law and then split to start his own firm after 10 years. Sounds like all the other lawyer/authors out there. And if you read his first book 'The Colour of Law' it would have been too easy to pidgeon-hole him solely as the writer of legal thrillers. His second book, 'The Abduction', therefore comes as a bit of a surprise.

It is a tale of a man who has everything - great kids, beautiful wife and a company about to be floated on the stock exchange for over a billion dollars. John Brice is a geek. A very-soon-to-be-rich geek, but a geek nonetheless who spends more time surrounding himself with work that his family can sometimes be pushed into the background. This is how, when John's wife turns up late to watch a football game her daughter was playing she finds her husband totally unaware of things, talking on the phone. The game has ended and Grace (the daughter) has gone for ice-cream - only she is not there. The coach says she already left with her uncle. Problem is - she has none!

What follows is a race against time to find Grace and the unknown people who have kidnapped her. In order to achieve this the family must rely on John's dad Ben Brice, ex-Vietnam vet and full-time alcoholic. Not only that.....the family have a few secrets of their own that can no longer stay buried.

I really enjoyed this book. I can usually gauge how much I like them by how long I stay awake reading it past one in the morning. I collapsed into bed last night (this morning) at two thirty, unable to focus on the pages anymore. It is a very well written novel with well-rounded characters and a fast writing style that doesn't sacrifice the story in the need for speed. The only drawback is you have to suspend your belief on occasion as coincidence plays a major role throughout the entire book. If you can do this then you will not be disappointed.

Also, as seems to be occuring more and more these days you are given the first chapter from his next book. I find this pointless. Why would I want to read the beginning of a book and have to stop there? I can think of nothing more annoying - besides Joe Pasquale.

With a very touchy subject matter many authors would fail to relay the correct amount of pain and suffering a parent would undergo during such trauma but Gimenez manages the job with supreme ease. A book I would recommend to anyone who likes thrillers from an author who is still trying to make a name for himself in this scene.

Summary: Great second book from an up and coming author