Gone » (Reprint)

Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of Gone, Alone, The Killing Hour, The Survivors Club, The Next Accident, The Other Daughter, The Third Victim, and The Perfect Husband. She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next novel of suspense.

When someone you love vanishes without a trace, how far would you go to get them back? For ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, it s the beginning of his worst nightmare: a car abandoned on a desolate stretch of Oregon highway, engine running, purse on the driver s seat. And his estranged wife, Rainie Conner, gone, leaving no clue to her fate. Did one of the ghosts from Rainie s troubled past finally catch up with her? Or could her disappearance be the result of one of the cases they d been working a particularly vicious double homicide or the possible abuse of a deeply disturbed child Rainie took too close to heart?

Publishers Weekly

Former FBI profiler Pierce Quincy's marriage is on the rocks, but things go from bad to worse when his wife, Rainie, goes missing. A kidnapper soon contacts Quincy with a somewhat unusual ransom demand, leaving Quincy and the investigation team with no choice but to play the kidnapper's game to keep Rainie alive. The story is told from alternating points of view, showing Quincy's efforts to find his wife and Rainie's struggle against her cruel captor. The plot is formulaic and derivative, but the abridgment makes it simple to follow, so listeners should have no trouble keeping up. Kairos's voice is light and pleasant, and while her narration is not superb, it does get the job done. Kairos modulates her voice sufficiently to distinguish between male and female voices, but the accents she attempts are beyond her and come off sounding a bit silly. For the most part, the narration is engaging and effectively propels the story forward, but Kairos-and Gardner-occasionally lays it all on a bit too thick, taking the narrative (and the narration) into the realm of tepid melodrama. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 21). (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.