Iles, Greg: 24 Hours

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Joe Hickey is one smart sadist. Like your more successful gamblers, he knows that walking away from the table when you're ahead is usually the best policy. For five years he has supported himself and his collaborators with his patiently-won earnings, the produce from his kidnappings--only one perfectly planned abduction per year--of the young children of well-to-do doctors. His crimes are so well thought out that Hickey knows his victims will neither attack him nor call the police, either during the kidnapping or after their children's safe return. He is confident enough in his planning that he uses his real name--rubbing his victims' noses in their impotence--and is unconcerned if they happen to have access to firearms. The distraught parents of Hickey's targeted children bend to his will--a rather unpleasant business given his demands--because they have to.

Hickey's sixth kidnapping, of five-year-old juvenile diabetic Abby Jennings, is the subject of Greg Iles' taut, perfectly plotted, utterly gripping 24 Hours. The Jenningses may be having the worst day of their lives in the book, but you'll have a great one as you neglect your responsibilities, lock yourself in your bedroom, and read Iles' novel from cover to cover.