book cover of The Ransom
 

The Ransom

(1991)
A novel by

 
 
Once a criminal, always a criminal...
After twelve years in Attica, Baker Wyatt is again free to start leading a "healthy, normal, and productive life." But Baker is not a normal person. In fact, the one thing he's certain of after spending over half his forty-one years in prison is his inability to lead a normal life on the outside. So Baker decides to pull one last job. Success will bring enough money to make up for all his years behind bars. Failure will result in life imprisonment--or death

The plan is to kidnap someone so corrupt that the family can't go to the FBI and rich enough to pay the three million dollar ransom. Baker settles on Tito Benitez, one of the most brutal cocaine traffickers in Manhattan.

What follows is a cat and mouse game that features one of the savviest ransom sequences in the history of crime.

Praise for Brian Tobin:

THE RANSOM

"The Ransom is a first novel that races through the boroughs of New York like an A train." - The Chicago Tribune

"Tobin's outstanding first novel is a rereadable, memorable mystery - a knockout, a spellbinder." - The Drood Review of Mystery

"{A} tidy, zippy novel." - Kirkus Review

THE MISSING PERSON

"In an unusual mystery without a conventional hero or villain, Tobin movingly depicts the lives of ordinary people who suddenly find themselves in extraordinary circumstances... Tobin makes the most of plot, character and the warmly evoked Hudson Valley setting in this satisfying, atypical mystery." - Publishers Weekly

"Tobin's grasp of the characters is so sure that the suspense doesn't let up..." - Kirkus Review

"There is a mystery here..but the novel is really about love, separation, longing, and the pain of never knowing the fate of a loved one. Tobin, whose debut novel, The Ransom, was stunning in its portrayal of career outlaws, is equally at home with good people coping with awful circumstances... A complex, thoughtful novel." - Booklist

"It delivers the suspense most mysteries only promise." - Wilson Library Bulletin

"With expert narration that moves easily back and forth in time, Mr. Tobin lures us into the grip of a well-built, fast-paced story with both a tantalizing mystery and a love story at its core. The tight and complicated plot never seems forced because it grows out of the motivations and actions of strong, believable characters... He keeps us in suspense until the last page, where the final surprise, and perhaps the most unexpected, is how deeply he has tapped our emotions." - The New York Times Book Review


Genre: Mystery

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