Author – Lisa Black

“Takeover” is the first in a new thriller series by author Lisa Black. Lisa is a forensic scientist so the topic of this book is very familiar to her. She previously worked in Cleveland where the story is set but now resides in Florida. The second in this series, “Evidence of Murder” will be published in August 2009.

Theresa MacLean is a forensic scientist living in Cleveland with her daughter, Rachel, and is engaged to a Paul Cleary, a local policeman. She is called investigate the murder of Mark Ludlow who was found dead in front of his own home. It is a curious murder because it doesn’t seem logical how he was murdered or even why.

Later that morning she finds out that her fiancé is being held hostage in the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland in what appears to be a bank robbery, but at the Federal Reserve? Enter Chris Cavanaugh, the local negotiator that has a seemingly clean track record and hasn’t lost a hostage yet. Chris doesn’t want Theresa involved or around the scene, but her fiancé is in that bank and she can’t just stand around and do nothing. So will she help matters or make them worse? And what will happen to her fiancé, Paul? Will he make it out of the situation?

I really enjoyed this book for many reasons. The first being the time frame of the book. The story takes place over eight hours and it is a very intense eight hours. The second is the shorter chapters; it made it easier to find a stopping place even though I didn’t want to put the book down!

There were times where I wanted to shake the main character, Theresa, and ask her if she was crazy?! Only someone not in their right mind would change places and become a hostage in an already volatile situation.

As I was reading the book I could help wondering why someone would try and rob a Federal Reserve Bank when they really don’t have cash on hand like a normal bank. Was there another motive of the robbers? Was there an inside man helping them? What was their plan to get out of there alive, or did they even have one? I did become suspicious of a character or two and wondered what it was that I did not know yet about this person. And I liked that I was on target with one of the characters, although it was a slightly different twist than I expected.

Reviewed for RebeccasReads.com 10/08