I received this as an ARC via Librarything.
A well written but strange book. A sort of PG-13 version of the long-term abduction/rape of a young woman...
I've been doing a lot of reading about serial killers the past year or so (don't ask. Okay, it's because of Russell Williams. But that's another story) and I can tell Tim Johnston has read the same Ted Bundy books I have.
For what it is--a thriller with literary aspirations--it is well done. A bit slow moving in spots, oodles of suspense in the last third or so. But I can't escape the glossing over of the horror of two years in the life of a kidnapped 18 year-old woman...for those who couldn't handle the depths of depravity, don't worry: you won't find that in these pages. And I do understand why Mr. Johnston chooses to wrap his story around the daughter about to leave for university (it's on their final vacation as a family that the abduction takes place). It's the same reason that the princess must be rescued in every old video game and movie: the young virginal woman is worth more than rubies (except to Hobbits, maybe).
Still, this sanitized horror uses the pornography of sexual violence to pull our strings.
That being said, I hope he does well with it.
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