Appearances deceive when two young women are abducted from a Santa Barbara health spa. The private calm of Paradise Plaza, a posh resort near Sideways country, is shattered when two guests are kidnapped during an early morning hike. Stanford junior Holly Constantine and hot TV star Vanessa Wyatt form an uneasy alliance in their sensory-deprived captivity, while an unorthodox Internet ransom demand seeks public contributions to create parks in unlikely locations. Holly’s parents, Beverly Hills entertainment lawyers, hold the media at bay as they coordinate the ransom funding. A determined stalker, old secrets, a captive’s health crisis, and a captor’s overactive libido complicate matters as law enforcement officials, the media, and their audience race against the ticking clock.
Author Taffy Cannon has drawn from elements of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Chowchilla schoolbus abduction, and the Leopold and Loeb case, but she puts her own unique, acerbic spin on this suspense thriller. No one satirizes Southern California better than Cannon, as she showed in her critically acclaimed Open Season on Lawyers and the Nan Robinson mystery series. Readers of Paradise Lost will be alternately chortling and chewing their nails.
Taffy Cannon has written thirteen books, including both series and stand-alone mysteries, and an Academy Award-nominated short film. Her travel mystery, Guns and Roses, was nominated for the Agatha and Macavity best novel awards. She lives in a Southern California beach town with her family.
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