I remember when this novel first came out, I thought it was some kind of tie in to the TV series, 24.

It’s not.

But it’s still a good book. Jim Hickey and his family have a scam they pull every year. They target a rich doctor’s family—kidnapping the child and putting Jim with the wife and Jim’s wife Cheryl with the husband. Jim’s half-brother who is mentally challenged holds the child at a remote location and they check in every half hour. Should the call not come in, the victim is killed. Hickey gets away with it by threatening to come back and kill the child if the couple reports the crime to the police.

It’s an almost perfect crime and one he’s pulled four times before.

The fifth victim is Will and Karen Jennings and their daughter, Abby.

Iles sets up the story from the first page, showing us the successful end to Hickey’s scam in the first eight pages, before introducing the Jennings. But unlike previous years, Hickey has a deeper stake in targeting the Jennings, one that slowly unfolds over the course of the book. It’s an entertaining cat and mouse game as the Jennings try to find a way out of the scam that Hickey is pulling. Extra intensity is added by the fact that Abby has juvenile diabetes.

It’s a fast-paced thriller that works better if you don’t think too much about some of the huge leaps required to tell the story. It’s not as strong as Iles’ “Turning Angel” but it’s still an entertaining read and one that you won’t regret.