When one opens a new book, there is always, for this reader, a bit of tension. What world will this open? What adventure awaits? How good will the writing be? After the first two pages of The Siege, I exhaled and relaxed, thinking that this is, after all, a Stephen White novel, and I was in excellent hands.
That is not to say that the book opens in a placid landscape. To the contrary. The opening scene takes place on the campus of Yale University, where the police are camped out at a building in front of which is a young man, a Yale student, to whose body has been strapped a bomb. He tells the police that the bomb will go off in precisely five minutes. Terrifyingly, he is only one of a number [exact figure unknown] of students who are missing and presumably all being held hostage by person or persons unknown, for reasons unknown, inside that same building, a fortress-like structure unnervingly referred to as a tomb.
There are several protagonists in the book, and the reader is soon introduced to the first of these: Sam Purdy, a Boulder, Colorado police detective currently on suspension, who is prevailed upon by the mother of one of the hostages to go to New Haven to be “her eyes and ears” and to try to save her daughter’s life. Once in Connecticut, Sam becomes involved with FBI agent Christopher Poe and CIA analyst Deirdre (“Dee”) Drake when they realize they have a common mission: To end the situation with as little loss of life as possible.
There are differing p.o.v.’s, the only first person sections narrated by Sam, which might not seem workable but is eminently so. The characters are deftly drawn and intriguing, including the local hostage negotiator who is the one constant at the scene. The scenario played out is one that is terrifyingly possible in today’s world, and the tension is present from first page to last. This is one book you won’t be able to put down. Recommended.
