Beat-the-clock suspense in a pedestrian kidnaping narrative. After
stabs at American Gothic (Tully, 1994) and at high-brow whodunit
(Red Leaves, 1996), Russian-born novelist Simons tries her hand at
a mean-and-lean woman-in-periler, as far as possible from the
genre's traditional willowy divorcee heroines. During a last-minute
spending spree in a Dallas shopping mall, Desdemona "Didi" Wood, in
her ninth month of pregnancy and experiencing what she imagines are
false contractions, meets Lyle Luft, a goodlooking, clean-cut
twentysomething fellow who gallantly offers to carry her bags. She
brushes him off, then encounters him again in the mall parking lot,
where the searing noontime heat, her soon-to-be-born baby, and
Luft's menacing tone make it almost impossible for her not to get
into his van. Meanwhile, Didi's husband Rich wonders why Didi stood
him up for lunch. A call to Didi's cell-phone brings out the beast
in Lyle, who begins to eat, verbally abuse, and sadistically
torture the poor woman. At the mall, Rich discovers Didi's car,
scattered packages, and suspicious bloodstains. The author then
pulls us through predictable scenes with vacuous mall drones and
skeptical cops while cross-cutting to the loudly suffering Didi and
simmering psycho Lyle, who brutally assaults anyone who gets too
close. Fortunately, Rich has a soulmate in stoic FBI kidnaping
expert Scott Somerville, who is soon on Lyle's trail. When Didi's
contractions begin, Lyle reveals that he is going to kill her after
she gives birth and then flee with the infant to Mexico. The gory
scenes that follow are made as agonizingly hideous as Simons's
spare prose will permit. Blatantly manipulative and gratuitously
horrific; still, this might just be the breakout novel its author
intends. (Kirkus Reviews)
Didi Wood is nine months pregnant, doing some last minute shopping before the baby is born. Stepping out of the air-conditioned Dallas shopping mall into the cruel heat of the parking lot, she hears a voice behind her . . . and the nightmare has begun.
I
Abducted by an increasingly unstable young man, Didi must endue an epic drive across the Texas plains, heading through the relentless heat towards a destination that only he knows.
Meanwhile, her anguished husband Rich is on the trail with an FBI agent who may not be as good as he says he is at rescuing hostages.
'Eleven Hours' is a tour de force of storytelling power from the bestselling author of 'Tully' and 'Red Leaves'.
"You'll never look at life the same way again. Pick up ['Tully'] and prepare to have your emotions wrung so completely you'll be sobbing your heart out one minute and laughing through your tears the next."
'Company'
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