24 Hours opens with the kidnapping of a young boy, who is safely returned to his family after a ransom is paid, with the warning that they'll be back to kill the child if the police ever hear of it. The kidnapping itself is polished, performed by a team who clearly know what they're doing. A year later it happens all over again - Abby Jennings, also the child of a Mississipi physician, is kidnapped while her father's out of town at a conference. This time, though, things don't go quite as well as the kidnappers (cold leader Joe Hickey, his girlfriend Cheryl and his loyal, large and mildly retarded cousin Huey) expect.
Fast-paced, relatively plausible if a little predictable, 24 Hours is an absorbing read primarily because of the interactions between the characters - Will and his wife Karen, whose marriage is already a little rocky; Huey and Abby; Cheryl and Joe; Cheryl and Will; and Will and Joe. Isles has imbued all his characters with a level of multidimensionality that made me eager to see what would happen next, and why they behaved the way they did. - Alex
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