The Abduction - Mark Giminez

Preposterous though it is, you can’t help admiring the scale and ambition of The Abduction – a big, bold, in-your-face American blockbuster of a thriller. A kidnapped child at the centre of all this furore is Gracie, the tough-cookie daughter of an outrageously rich and successful family. Her father is a computer billionaire, her mother a high-flying, high-profile lawyer. When Gracie is abducted at a school soccer game, it inevitably turns into a huge media event, particularly when a reward of $25 million is offered for her safe return. But surprisingly the kidnappers don’t take the parents up on their offer and there is no ransom demand made. Eventually, the family have to come to terms with the fact that their daughter is almost certainly dead.

However, Gracie’s grandfather – a grizzled Vietnam veteran, fighting to contain the demons of the past and the flashbacks that torment him through heavy drinking – has a mystical psychic connection with the child and is convinced that she is still alive. When the FBI give up on the case, he sets out to rescue her himself, and do it his own way – particularly as the kidnapping seems to be linked in some way to his past as a Green Beret in Nam.

Everything about The Abduction is BIG – over-the-top scenario and characters, clipped dialogue, almost declamatory prose, even the emotions are pumped-up to the max, full of macho posturing, screaming, hard-bitten dialogue and threats of a bloody and violent death for Gracie’s captors ...and that’s just the mother.  Gimenez clearly takes this all very seriously and for the novel to work it is essential that he does – but that doesn’t mean the reader has to. All of this would be utterly laughable if you took it at face value. Go along for the ride though and this is a complete blast of a read, constantly maintaining a blistering pace, keeping the reader gripped (and incredulous) at the subsequent revelations, thrills, action and inevitable explosive finale.