FICTION
Achild’s game. A child’s abduction. A mother’s desperation.
That may sound like a run-of-the-mill storyline, but Susan Arnout Smith puts the reader through the mill in %26quot;The Timer Game,%26quot; her first — and spellbinding — thriller.
Grace Descano is 32, a single mom to 5-year-old Katie. Once a promising pediatric heart surgeon, Grace left the profession after a volunteer trip to Guatemala went horribly wrong. Now she’s working as a crime-scene investigator in San Diego.
On what seems to be a routine investigation at a methamphetamine house, Grace is confronted by a crazed schizophrenic who has killed three colleagues. Grace returns the favor, but the dead madman’s father is a U.S. senator, and Grace is told to take some time off. But before Grace blew him away, the madman called her by name and warned her that the Spikeman was coming for her.
A few days later, Katie is abducted from her birthday party, and the Spikeman contacts Grace with a barrage of clues for a timed scavenger hunt. If she fails, he warns, Katie will die.
So far, so traditional. But Smith raises the tension with a complex — but never confusing — plot involving a well-known biomedical research center, a reporter’s investigation into heart transplants, child pornography, pure greed and unadulterated evil. What follows is heart-pounding suspense.
But the story is not the only strength of %26quot;The Timer Game.%26quot; Smith has invested much care into creating Grace, who’s also a recovering alcoholic. Few thriller protagonists are as memorable.
Smith’s writing rises above the mediocre level of many thrillers, and her insights, such as %26quot;None of us escapes this world undamaged,%26quot; strike home. And much of the action takes place on Halloween, which adds a ghoulish touch and heightens the tension.
With an intelligent, literate plot and a fully drawn heroine, %26quot;The Timer Game%26quot; portends great things from Smith. And readers will want her to hurry.
Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or jstrafford@timesdispatch.com.
abduction,amp,plo,protagonist
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