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Eve Rossi is an FBI hostage negotiator with a troubled past. Her last negotiation didn’t end well and then her stepfather, a retired CIA operative, passed away. She is on leave when she received orders to return to work; someone has taken several people hostage at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, a New York City landmark.
The hostage taker has wired explosives to his hostages and to every known entry of the building. The Church is panicking about losing even a pane of stained glass, but Eve is worried about the hostages, especially as they start to die.
She calls in her old team, Vidocq, a group of career criminals with unique skills. Each member of the team is introduced through FBI reports interspersed throughout the novel. News updates also break up the chapters and the tension as the story propels forward. The chief suspect is a cop on suspension, Eve establishes contact with him but his demands are puzzling – all he wants is for the FBI to round up five specific people to bear witness.
Eve’s team is working against a tight timetable to try and find these people and to determine what, if anything, they have in common with the hostage taker. Pintoff skillfully ratchets up the tension and throws more than one curveball into this twisty, exciting read.
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HOSTAGE TAKER by Stefanie Pintoff. Bantam (August 18, 2015). ISBN 978-0345531407. 432p.
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