15 Seconds by Andrew Gross

Dr. Henry Steadman is a well-respected plastic surgeon from Palm Beach, Florida visiting Jacksonville for a quick round of golf with a former college roommate and to address a Doctors Without Borders conference.  On his way from the airport to his hotel in a rental car he is stopped by the Jacksonville police.  Probable cause for the stop seems weak to Henry and the police officer Martinez appears to have mistaken him for someone else.  Finally as Officer Martinez agrees to release Henry with only a warning, a blue car with South Carolina plates pulls up beside the police cruiser and shoots and kills Martinez.  Henry panics and tries to follow the perpetrator’s car, fully aware he himself could be accused of the murder.  He calls 911 from his cell phone and reports a partial license plate number from the blue car but is repeatedly instructed to return to the scene.  When he does, the police open fire on him so he flees the scene again.  This time he heads to the home of his golfer buddy only to find him dead.  Now Dr. Steadman is the sole suspect in two murders.

With nowhere to turn and suspicious of the local police, Henry calls the police headquarters in an attempt to clear up this huge misunderstanding.  His call is inadvertently routed to Carrie Homles in the community outreach department.  Carrie is a recent widow with a son recovering from an accident.  While she wants to believe Henry’s story, she follows department protocol advising him to surrender.  When her boss discounts her attempts to clear Henry, she does some investigation of her own and confirms her intuition that Henry is innocent.  Unable to convince her boss, she takes a leave of absence and heads to South Carolina to further investigate on her own.

Henry then is contacted by the perpetrator who has set out to ruin him.  The villain calls Henry from his daughter’s cell phone to inform the good doctor that his daughter has been kidnapped.  Henry is warned that any word of this crime to the police will result in her death.  Now to save his daughter and his reputation, Henry must try to solve the mystery of who this guy is and why the vendetta against him while avoiding law enforcement.

15 seconds is what MRB commonly refers to as an airplane book.  It’s a page turner and a quick read that holds your attention through each twist and turn of a fast paced thrilling plot.  With such rapid fire action, however, the author's character development is weak… insufficient to create much of a connection to the characters. But the story does hold your interest and is an entertaining tale.  Next time I want to read an airplane book… and sometimes I do… I might consider another Andrew Gross novel.