The Worst Thing
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3.9 • 9 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
For Bryan Bennett, designing hostage negotiation programs is the perfect job—as long as he doesn’t deal directly with kidnappers or their victims. Intense nightmares of his own abduction and imprisonment as a small boy still plague him thirty-some years later, and claustrophobia prevents him from attempting to travel.
So when Bryan’s boss asks him to fly to Reykjavik to teach his corporate-level kidnapping and extortion seminar, he initially refuses. But a CEO has specifically requested Bryan—or no one else. Finally Bryan relents…
For decades he’s treaded gingerly around his deepest terrors. Now, on this trip, Bryan’s taken hostage again and must face his fears full-on. Will he realize that in this battle of will and nerve, he is his own greatest enemy? Or has this fight already been lost years ago?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bryan Bennett, who was kidnapped and held for two months as a five-year-old, has largely overcome that trauma to become a successful hostage negotiator for a Seattle security company in this taut stand-alone from Edgar-winner Elkins (Turncoat). When Bryan's boss, Wally North, asks him to present a "corporate-level kidnapping and extortion seminar" to GlobalSeas, an Icelandic fisheries company, Bryan, who tries to avoid confined spaces, convinces himself that medication will enable him to endure the plane flight. Even Bryan's discovery that Wally neglected to tell him that GlobalSeas' CEO survived an abduction attempt doesn't deter Bryan and actually motivates him to seek professional help for his crippling panic attacks. Once Bryan and his long-suffering wife, who's looking forward to a vacation, arrive in Iceland, he's plunged into a dangerous situation that puts his sanity and life at risk. While a final twist will strike many readers as a cheat, Elkins excels at maintaining tension throughout and in making his hero's difficulties accessible.
Customer Reviews
Interesting departure
Although there are some dragging spots, overall an interesting character study, and successful departure from his usual series. One reviewer calls the ending a cheat, but that isn't the case. Little mystery, more suspense and psychology.