Hostage

Hostage is the Crais standalone that became a Bruce Willis film, but the novel is significantly more interesting than the adaptation. Jeff Talley is the chief of police in a small California foothill town, recently retired from LAPD hostage negotiation after a case that went bad. Three teenagers, attempting an amateur burglary at the wrong house, end up holding the family hostage. The family belongs to someone whose business interests cannot afford the kind of attention this is going to get.

Crais runs the procedural in real time. The teenagers, the family, the outside players who arrive to remove the situation from local control, all carry weight. Talley's old hostage-negotiation training gets put against an opponent who is willing to escalate in ways Talley's career did not prepare him for.

Four stars. A tight, propulsive thriller. Recommended to fans of the procedural form.