Rating: 
Summary: Crais strikes again.
Review: As a loyal devotee of Crais' Elvis Cole series, I waited a while before reading this book - his newest "stand-alone" book - after the immensely entertaining DEMOLITION ANGEL. This was silly of me, as HOSTAGE is one of those books that you just really don't feel comfortable putting down, due to the irrational fear that something might happen while you're not reading.Mind you, HOSTAGE is not Crais' best work, nor is it a book without flaws. Quite frankly, the book is absolutely riddled with cliches. What makes Crais a fascinating writer is the way he transcends these cliches and allows us to get caught up in the intensity of the situation. There are even certain moments in the book where the main character, Talley, has to take a second to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. But, like all of Crais' work, this book is exciting, intriguing, full of interesting, real characters, and you just don't want to put it aside until it's done.
Rating:
Summary: Another Thriller
Review: Author Crais remains in top form with this story, in which
a burned-out LA SWAT negotiator has semi-retired to a small,
quiet suburb, where he expects to remain as police chief in
a similarly small, quiet job.
His expectations are shattered when some small-time losers
rob a convenience store, where an unexpected struggle over a
gun results in a dead clerk, with the panicked hold-up guys
running for cover and ending up in a nice, high-end house
with a man and 2 kids. Before the robbers can get away, as they
seriously want, they are cornered in the house, where they then
take that family hostage.
The hostage situation seems routine, if dangerous, for the local
chief, but the scenerio plays out much differently than expected.
It turns out the man of the house is an accountant for a large
west-coast organized crime family, and those people make immediately plans for handling the situation, over and above
anything the cops can do. And they bring massive resources to
play in their attempt to get what they want.
Plus, their solution involves taking some hostages of their
own, so they can control the problem and its solution.
The action moves along quickly and effortlessly, and all the
characters ring true, even if a bit more willing to work for
organized crime than we like to think possible. Some unexpected
characters end up working agains the police chief, and he has
multiple enemies to fight in trying to reach a reasonable
conclusion to both the crimes and his own personal demons.
A very serious story that is gripping and entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Why did Bruce Willis buy the film rights?
Review: Which is a very legitimate question, since several better hostage negotiation novels have been written in recent years. Such stories are very tricky to write (I know- I've been embroiled in writing one for over four years now) and this is perhaps the reason why fans of this subgenre inevitably have to settle for a trade off- Either they can read a thrilling novel that's badly researched (Deaver's A MAIDEN'S GRAVE) or a serviceable novel that's well-grounded in research. Robert Crais's HOSTAGE falls in the latter category.
Early on, we meet Jeff Tally, a former LAPD SWAT negotiator who, naturally, was knocked almost completely out of the life after a hostage standoff went bad. Tally is chief of a small police department on the California coastline in a sleepy town where a car backfiring is assumed to be a car backfiring. Then three youths rob a convenience store in which the owner is accidentally killed (shades of Sandra Brown's horrendous STANDOFF). All but one panics and flee, eventually settling in the house of a father of two children who turns out to be an accountant of a mob family. This is an intriguing setup but somehow Crais doesn't fully pull the trigger.
The group dynamic in the household is interesting (Crais rightly doesn't allow for Stockholming, since Mr. Smith is seriously beaten early in the standoff), as is the response by the mob bosses who want to retrieve from Smith's house incriminating evidence that could put away virtually all of organized crime on the east coast.
To Crais's credit, he makes the situation even more unstable. One of the three gunmen, Mars Krupcek, is obviously not what he appears to be. The creation of Mars is a welcome one and his eerie calmness in the face of these desperate circumstances is far creepier than the frantic, frenetic brothers who are his accomplices. One can almost hear Crais piling on the building blocks as he constructed this pretentious novel with one stock motivation and plot device after another (a cache is found and this is the motivation that Dennis Rooney, the ringleader, supposedly needs to escape the barricade outside).
Overall, however, the ending was unimaginative and predictable and a fairly sharp reader will be able to tell who the crooked cop behind the barricade is dozens of pages before Crais tells us who it is. His language isn't memorable, the characterization merely adequate (Mars notwithstanding) and I'd give this book only one more star than Sandra Brown's STANDOFF, quite possibly the most inept and boring hostage negotiation melodrama ever penned.
Frankly, I think Mr. Willis's money would've been better spent optioning or buying outright the film property of THE STANDOFF, Chuck Hogan's fictionalized account of the Ruby Ridge fiasco.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable
Review: This book started very well and I read word for word for about seven or eight chapters. At that point, I was pretty sure I could already write the basic synopsis for the rest of the book, so I flipped to the last chapter to test this theory and found I was right.
We have the lead character, who has been in a situation like this before that ended horribly, therefore we know that this time he's going to make it and come out the other end, in order to redeem himself, heal, etc. We have his wife, who he's separated from and who he wants to get back together with, but he just doesn't have it ... another plot in which to redeem himself. We have three young bad guys who really don't know what they're doing. And we like them just a little bit because they are so young and scared, but we know they'll get what they deserve. And then .... and THEN .... we throw in the mafia. WHAT????? Hostage isn't a badly written book. It isn't even terribly boring. But there is nothing special here. This is the first Robert Crais I have read, and I may very well take a poke at some of his earlier books, but I have had enough of this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Another great standalone from Crais
Review: Two bits of good news about Robert Crais: his new Elvis Cole novel is coming soon and his current non-Elvis book is top-notch. In Hostage, former hostage negotiator Jeff Talley must deal with three unlucky robbers holed up in a suburban house with a father and two kids. Adding a twist, the father is a mob accountant, and he has some critical information (plus a bunch of cash) stashed within his home. This is a novel of pure suspense, and I was not surprised to find it finished the same day I started it; it was not easy to put down. Crais keeps things going at a rapid pace and the short chapters, rotating points-of-view and frequent plot twists add to the fever pitch. With Talley tormented by his own inner demons in addition to mobsters who are manipulating him by holding his wife and daughter prisoner, he is a man whose options keep getting more and more limited and in the process, the story gets better and better. I am not alone in longing to read the adventures of Elvis and Pike, but as long as Crais can continue to put out novels like this one, I am willing to wait a little longer.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping...the tension just keeps going!
Review: Hostage was a book I kept at work for days when I ate lunch alone or didn't have time to get out of the office. While it starts out with a bang, I wasn't sure at first that I was going to be able to get into it. By halfway through, I was not wanting to come back from lunch...just another page, PLEASE, I kept telling myself...but noooo, you must go back to work! It was like that all the way to the end of this book...Crais rachets up the tension and keeps on racheting until you think he can't POSSIBLY make it any more tense...and then he does!
Rating:
Summary: A bad hair day all around
Review: HOSTAGE accelerates from 0 to 60 in seconds, and then just keeps on rolling. Like A MAIDEN'S GRAVE, another hostage thriller I recently devoured, this novel is everything a trashy, can't-put-down potboiler should be. Denny, recently released from a correctional facility, robs a Southern California suburban convenience store with his whiny brother, Kevin, and an inscrutable new buddy, Mars. The cashier is killed, and Mars smiles watching him die. Making their getaway, the transmission of the trio's pick-up fails. So, it's out of the truck, over a wall, and into the home of an accountant, where the boys take hostages: the owner, Walter Smith, and his two children, 16-year old Jennifer and 10-year old Thomas. Soon the place is surrounded by the local, bedroom community cops headed by Chief Jeff Talley, a mentally scarred former hostage negotiator for the LAPD, who quit that gig because of burnout and a hostage crisis that went bad. Soon the Highway Patrol and the county sheriff's SWAT team join the fun. What the police and the Bad Guys don't realize is that Walter isn't just any accountant. He's the personal bean counter for Sonny Benza, head of the Mob's regional operations. It's tax time, and Walter has possession of the books for both Sonny's legal and illegal businesses, each on a computer zip disk. Through them, a link could be made back to the Big Boss on the East Coast. After Walter suffers a severe head injury, the disks are unprotected. (Oh, and did I mention that army of troopers itching to storm the house?) Ain't nobody happy about this one. Except maybe Denny, who's wondering how to spend the oodles of bundled C-notes he's found in a secret closet - if he can just get away with the swag. Enormous pressure envelops everybody in this cooker as each side - hostage takers, police, Mafia kingpins - focuses on its own agenda. Jennifer and Thomas are good, particularly the latter, as potential loose cannons. And you'll be wondering just how disgustingly violent the storyline's two psychos, the creepy Mars and Marion Clewes, will prove to be. Marion is the Wet Work Specialist brought in by Sonny's damage control team to force safe recovery of the two zips, and he knows where to find Talley's wife and daughter. Author Robert Crais filled HOSTAGE with distinct and interesting characters, and he maintained the knuckle-biting tension throughout a reasonably plausible plot. This is a First Class read that I unreservedly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Hostage by Robert Crais--A Slow Starter That Will Captivate
Review: Looking for a non-stop, gripping, realistic page turner from beginning to end? Keep on looking, but if you are interested in an entertaining, ultimately fast-paced thriller to pass an afternoon, this may be your book. Prior to reading Hostage by Robert Crais I had not heard of the author although he has written many other books. This book is written with an unusual narrative that will not appeal to everyone. The Plot-
I won't give much away, but Hostage is set in real time over the span of roughly just 14 hours, excluding a brief prologue and epilogue.
The prologue sets up the main character: Sergeant Jeff Talley, a hostage negotiator for the L.A.P.D. SWAT team. We briefly meet him and learn how he will come to find himself in the suburban setting of the story, living a solitary life, estranged from his family. The clock starts ticking on Hostage as two bumbling brothers and a mysterious co-worker of theirs haphazardly rob a convenience store and find themselves in a chain of events rapidly progressing from a bad idea to a worse situation. It ultimately lands them in the midst of the Smith family home, where father, daughter and son become the title Hostage's of the story. Now Talley must exorcise his personal demons and face another hostage situation that he was certain would elude him in the placid, bedroom community he'd settled into. At this point I thought I could see the writing on the wall for the rest of the plot, and I must say I was mildly annoyed with how predictable this appeared to be. Had I stopped then, I would have missed the best parts of the book. --Will Talley face his fears and return to his profession and his family?
--Who will make it out of the "hostage" situation alive?
--What is the secret of the household patriarch that really throws a wrench in things?
--Who's double-crossing whom? All questions you'll have to read the book to learn the answers to. Suffice it to say, Hostage has a bit more to offer than first impressions would lead you to believe. -----
My Thoughts-
The style of narrative is a bit different in Hostage. It jumps from person to person, sometimes in the midst of a chapter. This will definitely not appeal to everyone, but I think it added to the frenetic pace the author was striving for. I also found the characters to be wholly unappealing. I can't think of one that I cared for, or conversely cared about. Kind of crucial when you're supposed to be enthralled with what will happen to them. I think they could definitely have used some more development. I still gave this an above average recommendation, why? It is a very different read than anything I've come across recently and I did appreciate all the technical aspects of crime fighting, and the police that were covered as well. -----
Objectionable Content-
This is not the book for the immature or sensitive readers. There is considerable cursing. Drug use is discussed and done. There are allusions to both physical abuse of children and sexual innuendo. To top all that off, there are several scenes of graphically detailed violence. It's not something that bothers me given the context of the material, however I am sure it would be offensive to some readers. ------
Recommended-
I do recommend this book but with a cautionary mention of some of the graphic violence and mature subject matter covered in the book. I would not give this book to a reader under the age of 16. Fans of mystery, suspense and popular fiction should find this an entertaining read once it gets going.
Rating:
Summary: I still like Elvis Cole better, but...
Review: With L.A.Requiem, Robert Crais apparently came to a sort of stopping point in his series about Elvis Cole, L.A. Private Eye. Last year he did Demolition Angel, a darker, more moody novel than he'd previously produced, about a bomb disposal expert who had something go wrong one day and now carries the scars of that. This book is the same sort of thing: Jeff Talley was a hostage negotiator for the LAPD SWAT unit, and he wasn't perfect one day, with the result that a young boy died. He soon after left the department, and is essentially hiding in the Santa Clarita Valley to the north of L.A., working as the chief of Police in a town with a force of about 15 people who mostly hand out parking tickets. Then disaster strikes. A trio of small-time criminals rob a convenience store, kill the owner, and when fleeing, wind up in a house with a man and his two kids inside. Of course, Walter Smith, the homeowner, isn't what he seems, and soon everything begins to spin out of everyone's control. There's another kidnapping, several wheels-within-wheels twists, and an interesting cast of characters. I like Robert Crais, and I enjoyed the book greatly. I do still wish Elvis Cole would return, and I gather he has, but this was good in the meanwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This book left me on edge. I had to finish it in only 3 days!
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