Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons
A pregnant woman. A deranged psychopath. A desperate race against time. ""Eleven Hours" is a harrowing, hair-raising story that will keep you turning the pages late into the nght."--Janet Evanovich, author of "Four to Score." Martin's Press.\n\nEditorial Reviews\n\nContinuing to hone her style, Simons follows the logorrheic Tully and the pensive Red Leaves with a sparely written, blatantly shocking page-turner. Nine months pregnant with her third child, Desdemona (Didi) Wood basks in the adoration of her husband, Rich, national sales manager for a Dallas-based religious publisher. Didi's only sin is that she's a compulsive shopper, blowing her husband's hard-earned cash at a Dallas mall. A nondescript young man approaches Didi inside the mall, then follows her and forces her into his Ford minivan. Terrified, Didi wonders if God is punishing her for not going to church often enough or for being a shopaholic. She soon learns that the kidnapper, Lyle Luft, is enraged at God for allowing his wife and child to die. He wants a baby, and he doesn't care how he gets it. Rich deduces that his missing wife was abducted in the mall parking lot, but police are skeptical until tough black FBI officer Scott Somerville joins the chase. Simons's pacing is pulse-racing as she cuts from the pursuers to the pursued with nightmarish speed, evoking with economy and style Didi's terror, pain and sheer physical discomfort. As the road chase continues, news bulletins about Didi's abduction prompt Lyle into homicidal fury. Once he kills a cop, he has nothing left to lose. Meanwhile, Didi tries to persuade Lyle that he's "acting against God," but it's not surprising that her sermon falls on deaf ears. Despite the blatant overlay of born-again religiosity, the momentum of the chase sustains the narrative, and Simons renders some final stomach-churning scenes of violence with unsparing detail. While the psychological explanation of Lyle's sociopathy is superficial, and Didi's transformation from suburban housewife to tough and cool avenger is less than plausible, the atmosphere of panic never abates until Simons brings her suspenseful tale to a close. Mystery Guild selection; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour. (June)\n\n- Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\n\nBeat-the-clock suspense in a pedestrian kidnaping narrative. After stabs at American Gothic (Tully, 1994) and at high-brow whodunit (Red Leaves, 1996), Russian-born novelist Simons tries her hand at a mean-and-lean woman-in-periler, as far as possible from the genre's traditional willowy divorc‚Äöe heroines. During a last-minute spending spree in a Dallas shopping mall, Desdemona "Didi" Wood, in her ninth month of pregnancy and experiencing what she imagines are false contractions, meets Lyle Luft, a good-looking, clean-cut twentysomething fellow who gallantly offers to carry her bags. She brushes him off, then encounters him again in the mall parking lot, where the searing noontime heat, her soon-to- be-born baby, and Luft's menacing tone make it almost impossible for her not to get into his van. Meanwhile, Didi's husband Rich wonders why Didi stood him up for lunch. A call to Didi's cell-phone brings out the beast in Lyle, who begins to eat, verbally abuse, and sadistically torture the poor woman. At the mall, Rich discovers Didi's car, scattered packages, and suspicious bloodstains. The author then pulls us through predictable scenes with vacuous mall drones and skeptical cops while cross-cutting to the loudly suffering Didi and simmering psycho Lyle, who brutally assaults anyone who gets too close. Fortunately, Rich has a soulmate in stoic FBI kidnaping expert Scott Somerville, who is soon on Lyle's trail. When Didi˛s contractions begin, Lyle reveals that he is going to kill her after she gives birth and then flee with the infant to Mexico. The gory scenes that follow are made as agonizingly hideous as Simons˛s spare prose will permit. Blatantly manipulative andgratuitously horrific; still, this might just be the breakout novel its author intends. (Literary Guild featured alternate/Mystery Guild selection; author tour)\n\n- Kirkus Reviews
Publication Details
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Binding: Paperback
Published by: Flamingo: , 2002
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ISBN: 9780006551119 | 0006551114
299 pages.
Book Condition: Good
cover worn
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