Steal Away - Hardcover

Clark, Katharine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0449002764 ISBN 13: 9780449002766

Publisher: Fawcett, 1998

Synopsis

"David, something awful has happened to your mother and your father," said the stranger in the van. "You're in great danger. You've got to come with us. . . ."

Rachel Stark is about to live every parent's nightmare, the strain of her troubled marriage intensified by a far greater tragedy: her nine-year-old son, David, snatched off the street in broad daylight while on his way home from school. With no apparent motive. No immediate witnesses. And only one clue: his red bicycle lying, as if dropped in a hurry, on the side of the road.

Now Rachel must summon up all her strength and channel every ounce of rage, terror, and anguish into a desperate search for David. Her rocky relationship with her husband, Stephen, will face the ultimate challenge--and a callous act of betrayal.

Into this precarious mix come Rachel's sister, Miranda, recently divorced and living under foot--a bombshell who conceals explosive secrets; the unfriendly Detective Gallagher, infuriating in his cold detachment--and unspoken attractions; and John Robinson of the Missing Child Foundation, a seeming saint who harbors his own hidden agenda.

Then there is Rachel's uncanny connection to her son, both a blessing and a curse--a link that takes the form of fleeting visions, where a deathly white and terrified child cries out to a mother who cannot reach him. . . .

A frantic search propelled by a tidal wave of panic. Real characters and raw emotions. Simmering resentments and shocking revelations. Katharine Clark weaves these elements into a richly compelling novel of a family in crisis in a story that twists and turns at a breakneck pace until its stunning conclusion.

About this title

Review

Former Maine assistant attorney general Katharine Clark writes a lively series about a tough private detective called Thea Kozak (Death at the Wheel, Death in a Funhouse Mirror) under her Kate Flora pseudonym. Now comes this timely and very suspenseful thriller about such hot-button issues as surrogate fatherhood, AIDS phobia, and people who manipulate the missing children epidemic.

When 9-year-old David Stark disappears from his Massachusetts home, leaving behind on the roadside his new red bicycle, it touches raw nerves in several characters: David's over-protective mother, Rachel (who feels a strong psychic bond with her only child); his cold and supercilious father, Stephen (who isn't the boy's natural father--a sperm donor was involved); his jealous and mean-spirited aunt, Miranda (who gave away the family secret code, thus helping the kidnapper); an apparently unfeeling local detective; and the too-smooth head of a national missing children's foundation.

Clark manages to keep us interested in even her unsympathetic characters as the plot unfolds. We see David being kept alive but in dire danger and learn why he was chosen to be the victim of this particular crime. If at times the author seems to rely too much on every parent's darkest fear for her emotional energy, she also is sharp enough to involve even the childless or the misanthropic in the twists of her story. --Dick Adler

From the Back Cover

"Beautifully written and heartwrenching--one of the most moving books I've read this year. Katharine Clark has written a searingly memorable novel."
--Tess Gerritsen
New York Times bestselling author of Bloodstream

About this edition

• Publisher: Fawcett
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0449002764
• ISBN 13: 9780449002766
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 358