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.
