The first sequences in this book hooked me. It happens years before the time the rest of book is set. Bo Hancock, the hero of the story is talking with Melissa, the hooker his brother, Paul has paid. Paul finds them, takes the young girl off and the next thing you know she’s dead. Therein lies the secret that threads through the whole story. Bo can’t forget about this girl and why Paul would have killed her. But he belongs to a powerful and wealthy family so he must keep this terrible secret.

The story then reverts to present day and Bo, who has been running the family investment firm is nudged out by his family with the help of the man who wants Bo’s job. Paul is on a fast track to the White House. Not wanting Bo’s drinking and nights out on the town to smear Paul’s political chances, the family forces Bo to go off to Montana. Unbeknownst to the family, he keeps tabs on the firm.

When Jimmy Lee, the family patriarch becomes deathly ill, Bo comes back from Montana. At the hospital, he learns of another secret that starts him on a journey that will reveal to him that many people in his life have secrets of their own.

This book just couldn’t keep up the speed. It would have been a great read if it would have done that. The ending was a pageturner, as usual in Stephen Frey books..

Let me start by saying, I generally don’t like kidnapping books. A lot of them seem to frustrate me because of the kidnapper demanding outrageous sums of money. But this book kept me up to the end (I finished at three in the morning!). The kidnappers are most certainly memorable.

It starts out with the end of a previous kidnapping that went perfectly. The kid never dies. The cardinal rule of Joe and Huey Hickey’s simple kidnapping plan that involves kidnapping a child and in 24 hours the parents pay them and walk away safely with their only child.

The Hickeys wait a year living off the money and then strike another couple with a child. But the simple plan gets complicated quickly because this child is a juvenile diabetic and has to have insulin or she will die.

This is a page turner as you speed on to find out what is going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Jon Soliday is head counsel to Senator Grant Tully, his best friend from childhood. Grant is also running for Governor and leaning on Jon for advice. They could knock his competitor out of the water with a technicality Jon uncovered. Should they or shouldn’t they?

A lawyer Jon is asking advice regarding this matter is murdered. Jon is found at the scene and is indicted for his murder. This is not unfamiliar territory for Jon because he and Grant have been in this same situation years before. And this man’s murder is somehow connected to that very situation. Jon struggles to defend himself while not bringing up a past that even he is not too sure about.

I thought this was a pretty good book and couldn’t wait to find out what really happened at that long ago party where a girl died. But the real shocker came at the end when I found out who what I thought was a minor character, really was.