My Real Name Is Lisa

After Peter saves six-year-old Lisa from her violent kidnappers, he intends to take her right home, but when it becomes clear the child is not sure where home is and that they are still being followed, he grows more determined to protect her

Who wouldn't root for a successful young computer-company exec who risks his life to rescue an abused, kidnapped little girl he discovers one day in a convenience store? "My real name is Lisa" is the whisper that tips off Peter Howard about the bedraggled child, apparently the daughter of a brutish man who slaps her for talking to strangers. Fearing for Lisa's welfare, Peter confronts the man and, after a vicious fight, rescues the girl. The rest of this button-pushing suspenser by Alexander (Bandit, 1994) turns on Peter's difficulties in trying to get Lisa (who knows her street address, town and phone number, but not her state) home to her parents without calling the cops-who, he fears, will arrest him for kidnapping and will return the child to her tormentors-and without falling victim to the vengeful kidnappers. As his bloody run-ins with the gang pile up, Peter's decision to go it alone seems ever more absurd. The characters remain one-dimensional, though some variety is achieved through the multitude of points of view, including Peter's first-person narration. Readers aren't so much drawn into this story as they are deftly pushed into craving a big photo finish-which arrives on schedule, and with sentiment enough to make stones weep. Film rights to CBS.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A year after six-year-old Lisa Taylor is kidnapped, computer exec Peter Howard sees a man treating a little girl in a way that looks suspicious to him. The two men exchange words and blows, and suddenly Peter finds himself on the road with Alice, who tells him, ``My real name is Lisa.'' Anyone else would turn Lisa over to the police, but Peter doesn't want to put her through a dehumanizing system; he isn't sure he quite trusts the locals; and he expects to have her back home in a few hours--anyway, it seems a good idea to bypass the authorities and just deliver her himself to her agonized parents. But the Taylors aren't where he expects them to be--in fact, they're on a trip to Hawaii--and Jimmie Devries, the slaver who masterminded Lisa's kidnap, is on Peter's trail. By now Peter has also started to act enough like a molester himself (traveling alone with Lisa, not knowing her clothes sizes or what grade she's in) to arouse suspicion wherever he goes. And the closer he gets to the Taylors, the more his plans unravel (losing his car and money, getting scammed by people who pick him and Lisa up for a ride, and of course getting pursued by Jimmie). Alexander (The Chocolate Spy, 1978, etc.) spins out a slick update of It Happened One Night, with felony murder substituting for romance. TV rights to CBS, which will sharply improve the TV movie by shifting more of the menace from the opening episodes to the end. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When Peter Howard, a wealthy computer entrepreneur, encounters a woeful eight-year-old girl in a California store with an abusive adult, he impulsively follows them home, rescues her, and quickly finds himself in deep trouble. Lisa has been kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. Howard is determined to deliver her to her parents in Oregon, but the kidnappers are hot on the trail. As in Peter Blauner's The Intruder (LJ 4/15/96), a man faces evil with little help from the social system and encounters great danger trying to go it alone. Alexander, a lawyer, artist, and author (e.g., Fane, 1981), shows Howard discovering much about himself under adversity even as he teaches Lisa to relearn trust and love. Still, it's the suspense of the chase that keeps one turning pages. For most popular collections.
Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.