Hurwitz's fifth novel continues the story of Tim Rackley, the U.S. marshal introduced in 2003's The Kill Clause
. Tim and Dray, his wife, are slowly coming to grips with the loss of their seven-year-old daughter, Ginny, whose kidnapping and brutal murder was the focus of the previous novel. A more conventional series hero would be wreaking vengeance, but Tim's grief is plausibly amorphous. It wasn't always so. Rash vigilante action caused him to lose his marshal's job in The Kill Clause
, but he's given a chance to get his old job back when a brusque Hollywood producer begs him to find his daughter, Leah Henning, a missing Pepperdine coed. Leah may have been kidnapped by an unidentified cult, and Tim must bone up on mind control and manipulation. Hurwitz illustrates Tim's lessons via Leah herself, whose step-by-step indoctrination is as creepy as it is believable. Intending to persuade Leah to leave with him for deprogramming, Tim infiltrates the Program, facing off with charismatic cult leader TD Betters, who has created a seductively logical society based on self-help tenets. Once Tim's inside, he realizes that rescuing Leah isn't enough: he's determined to blow the Program inside out. Grounded in character and believable detail, Hurwitz's thriller engages on every level. Agent, Matthew Guma. (Aug.)
Forecast:
The cult plot is a little shopworn, but Hurwitz gives it enough new twists to
keep readers hooked.
