Review: A no-nonsense compelling thriller
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2013
Excellent crime thriller.  I was drawn into the story from the first page.Ben Jordan is Detective Inspector with two wives.  One is the normal ring-on-her-finger variety, the other comes in the form of his job, and his dedication to the latter shatters his relationship to the former.  If that wasn’t bad enough, his inclination to empty bottles of the alcoholic variety lands him in rehab.  His first case thereafter is a tough, emotionally draining child-kidnap case: the abduction of a young daughter with high-profile parents.  Jordan needs to find little Emily before it’s too late.  He finds he has to deal with the lowest of the low:  paedophiles and human traffickers.  He is aided by two police officers, dedicated and committed to the task in hand.  Their tenacity and persistence to find Emily seems to be above and beyond the urgency of the job…and the team has twenty-four hours…This was fast-paced, focussed, and compelling.  Toner is a skilled story teller.  I thought he was particularly adept in conveying the personal lives of the police officers with efficiency:  enough to make them human, enough to make the reader care about them without disturbing the flow of the plot.  His characterisation was equally adept: from the gentle, plucky, and likeable young Emily to the despicable low-life perpetrators.This was a book (and author) I was glad to have come across.