Hostage: A Novel

I have read several of Robert Crais' novels and purchased this one based on the positive reviews. I was "thrilled" with the book; loved the fast pace and have since recommended it to others. Fasten your seat belt!

It's an engaging page turner. Problem is, I simply didn't buy that the main guy was that pigheaded, and that really pulled me out of the story. Towards the end of the book there is a "twist" (not in the movie) in which the non-brother bad guy is revealed to be a psychopath with a past, and that takes the action off on a sidetrack that it really doesn't need to go down. The book is suspenseful and written in an engaging manner, but the motivations of the non-leads will make you roll your eyes.

This book made one of the worst Bruce Willis movies ever. I didn't realize that until I had already purchased it. The book may be okay but I couldn't get more than 3 chapters in because I couldn't get the bad movie out of my head.

I loved the book but was distracted on virtually every page of the Kindle version with typos, typically punctuation omissions & substitutions and breaking 2-syllable words into 2 separate words. MANY pages had multiple errors. Disappointed with the Kindle version (but would wholeheartedly recommend the book otherwise).

Robert Crais must be a genius. Layer upon layer of plot and characters. I read this book in 3 sittings. Couldn't wait to see what happened next. I've really enjoyed everything I've read from this author.

I scored this story with 3 stars because the first 3/4 get 5 stars and the last 1/4 get 1 star. Just when I was expecting a slam-bang ending, all 4 wheels came off and the authors credibility vanishes into thin air. I usually avoid spoilers but I have no choice here. After a crazy man soaks the inside of a house with two cans of gasoline and drops a lighted match, there's at least 10 minutes of action inside the house. The author even makes a weak attempt at regaining credibility by have the crazy man notice that gasoline burns slowly! Really? The final showdown between good and evil starts good and then the bottom drops out! I wish he had made the end of the story as good as the beginning of it. Once the crazy man goes on a rampage, stop and write your congressman. You'll enjoy that more than finishing this book.

I became a fan of thriller author Robert Crais as soon as I was introduced to Joe Pike and Elvis Cole, the protagonists from Crais’ most popular series. For more on that, please take a look at my Turn the Page review of The Watchman. Better yet, read the book or any of the other Pike and Cole novels. There are currently sixteen to choose from. Crais has written four standalones as well. I’ve only read one of them so far. It’s called Hostage and I had a very hard time putting it down.

Three thugs knock over a service station. It doesn’t go exactly as planned and the cashier is shot and killed. They flee the scene but police are already closing in on them. Seeing no other options, they take refuge in a nice home in an affluent neighborhood and take a father and his two children hostage. That’s when things really get interesting. The father risks his life to hide a couple computer disks and one of the thugs discovers a panic room, an extremely high tech surveillance system and over a million dollars in cash. He’s determined not to leave without the money but it’s clear there’s more to the rather average looking father than meets the eye.

Joe Talley is the police chief in the sleepy community where all this was going down. He was once a top negotiator for the L.A.P.D. but some bad experiences derailed both is career and as marriage. He’s still trying to sort out his issues when he finds himself in the role of negotiator once again. Lives are on the line, and the stakes go up even higher when some outside parties express a serious interest in those missing disks. They’re powerful people and prove they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. Talley’s wife and daughter end up in the crosshairs and a brave young boy may be his best and only hope to save them.

If the title of the book sounds familiar, Hostage was adapted into a major motion picture. I haven’t seen that movie. I did watch the trailer and it looked just awful. Please don’t judge Crais’ novel by anything you may have seen on the big screen. Maybe the movie was fantastic and the trailer was nothing more than a poor, over-dramatized, over-adrenalized and completely over the top representation. I don’t know; nor do I car. The novel is excellent, as is everything else I’ve ever read by Robert Crais. Five stars!!!

In another world, if I was giving Mr. Crais orders on what to write, it would be Elvis and Joe all the way. Later for Hostage, which was just a huge waste of reading time. More specifically, Joe Pike with Elvis as the sidekick. Furthermore, Joe is not to be ever shot, poisoned, maimed, hurt or sidelined in a hospital for any chapters. He is to be the quiet hero of every book, at the forefront of any case and keeping all the qualities Mr. Craig has already given him. Elvis can sit quietly in the background until Joe needs him, for picking up some Thai takeout, or beer, maybe.
Just in case there's any question or doubt, let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Crais, I order you to drop whatever you're working on (unless it's a Joe Pike action investigation ) and start on at least 10 years worth of Joe. He can even go on vacation, but not to Disneyland. Give him a girlfriend, but no one permanent. I can then die happy.
Ok,so Hostage might not be a complete waste of reading time. I admit, I may be a tiny bit Joe Pike fan.

If you read mysteries at all, the name Robert Crais is probably at least on your radar thanks to his bestselling Elvis Cole mystery series. He has written a few stand alones over the years, most noticeably Hostage. This book was turned into a movie starring Bruce Willis. I saw the movie a couple years ago and wasn't that impressed. But I remembered hearing that the movie took out the best parts of the book. Never being one to judge a book by its movie, I decided to give the book a try.

It's a hot Friday afternoon, and Dennis is bored. With the choices of going to the movies or robbing a gas station with his brother Kevin and new friends Mars, he decides to rob the store before hitting the movie. Unfortunately, things go incredibly wrong, the trio kills a man, and their car breaks down, forcing them to seek shelter in a nearby subdivision. With the police right behind them, they are forced to take a man and his two kids hostage.

All this is a nightmare for Jeff Talley. He's the chief of police in the small town where the trio has gone on their rampage. He's a former LA hostage negotiator who retired after one job in particular went very wrong. While nothing usually happens in the town of Bristo Camino, he's now forced to relive his former life.

Unfortunately for all involved, the man being held hostage has a secret of his own, a secret that is going to make this explosive situation much, much worse. Will anyone survive the ciaos to come?

Now, it has been a couple years since I saw the movie, so I don't remember all the details, but as I was reading the book, I kept waiting for something to happen that I felt was new or original. I'm still waiting. Instead, I felt like this book is filled with cliches. We've got overly familiar characters doing things by the book.

That's not to say that I didn't come to care for the characters. I truly felt for the kids being held in the house. Of the hostage takers, Kevin was by far the most sympathetic. Mars, on the other hand, was one big cliche, and one we really didn't need in this over packed book. And as overdone was Jeff Talley's hero cop character is, I did like him and want him to figure out a way to come out on top.

Once the big twist is worked into the story early on, the book doesn't take too many more surprising twists. That's not to say that I wasn't captivated or entertained; I just wasn't that surprised by much of what happened. The climax felt like a cop out, however. I honestly couldn't believe that the characters involved in the final scene would do what they did. In fact, I felt like Mr. Crais didn't know how to end the story, so he just wrapped it up quickly to move on to something else.

I did get a kick out of the setting of the book. While the town is fictitious, it is set near where I live. In fact, parts of my town were referenced on a regular basis. It looks nothing like my town, but I still liked it.

The story is told from multiple points of view, and that really helps communicate the growing tension both inside and outside the house. In fact, the writing is great all the way around, moving the story forward at a very quickly pace. Not being fond of swear words, I was very put off by the almost constant use of them by many of the characters in the beginning of the story. I always find it ironic that their use lessens as the story gets going, and the same was true here.

One of Robert Crais' diehard fans talks about Hostage dismissively as being Mr. Crais' attempt to write a movie that would become a blockbuster. Considering this is his only book to be made into a movie, I would have to guess he was right. Instead of being the fresh take on a familiar story, it sinks into all the predictable cliches, leaving me less than impressed.

While I have a history of reading anything in print; always have, I tend to not really avoid this particular genre, but rather it is not at the top of my reading list. When I do read a "thriller" or "action mystery" the first thing I look for and rather demand is good writing. I was not disappointed with this book or to be more precise, this author. It was my first book by Robert Crais and it will not be my last.

Briefly put (We already have some very nice plot summaries amongst the reviews here and product description which are all pretty spot on.), we have a burned out police negotiator who has left the fast track after a failed hostage negotiation that went bad and a child was murdered, and retreated to a less stressful job with local law enforcement. Three punk thugs commit a robbery and during that robbery a clerk is killed. These three then run and eventually take an entire family hostage. Like all criminals we are not talking the best and brightest of humans. Ah, our burned out hero is back to square one negotiating for peoples lives.

But that is not all, no, no, no - far, far from it. We have a rabid S.W.A.T. team that must be dealt with, a family (Actually two families) involved, organized crime that has a high stake as the husband of the hostage family is quite involved, and of course we have the three rather unstable individuals who are holding the family.

The author has skillfully transitioned back and forth throughout the book giving an inside look into the minds and motivations of all concerned...including our main character. This leads to a rather complicated plot that moves rather swiftly from one aspect of the situation to another. I hate to use the overused term of "page turner," but I know of no other way to describe this one. I was hooked on the first page and stayed hooked right up until the last paragraph.

But as I have already stated, the strength of this novel is in the writing. The author most certainly is skillful as a wordsmith and is obviously a natural born story teller. The prose is good, the plot moves quite nicely and despite the opinion of some, I feel the characters were all developed to the point that the reader could identify, on one level or another, with all concerned.

This is an enjoyable read; a fast read really and I am glad I introduced myself to this author. I will now seek out some of his other work.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Dennis Rooney and his brother, Kevin, decide at the spur of the moment to rob a convenience store in Bristo Camino, California, with a new friend who was recently released from prison. What was supposed to be a simple robbery goes terribly wrong and is compounded when they take refuge in a suburban home with the residents on premises. Jeff Talley, the chief of police in this quiet community, is a former LAPD SWAT negotiator who took this job as an escape from his stressful past. Now, he's faced with a deadly situation that calls for him to use all of his former training to get the hostages released unharmed. 

There were quite a few twists and turns in this story that kept me off balance and completely riveted. So many were not as they appeared and the robbers were unpredictable. Tally is a pretty flawed guy who ends up having a personal stake in the outcome. The dynamics between the robbers add another layer of suspense as each has a separate agenda. I normally am attempting to figure out who the real villains are while reading a mystery/suspense but this time I was just trying to keep up with all the emotional and plot shifts. I couldn't put this audiobook down and looked for excuses to drive so I could listen. 

This is my first book by Crais and it won't be my last. His writing style works really well with the genre, using an economy of words that  effectively tells the story, defines the characters and moves the plot along at a pace that left me breathless. If that's appealing to you, add this book to your shelf.

The book reads like a crappy Bruce Willis movie and, indeed, it was made into one. Every character is drawn from movie cliches, starting with the brilliant tough-guy cop who was devastated by a previous case gone bad and now must come out from his emotional hiding to save his family. But crappy action-thrillers have a way of pulling you forward by sheer momentum of the plot so there’s three stars. But it gets docked a star for also having that action-movie cliche of the women characters being non-existent or there to be rescued like damsels in distress — only men do anything important in this book. And it gets docked another star for holding back an absurd secret that one of the characters was hiding until near the end; it completely removes the plot from reality and is just stupid. Fortunately, this is an early Crais book and he gets better. Bechdel test: miserable failure.

If our count is correct, the Crais booklist stands at about 16 novels - comprised mostly of his popular Elvis Cole / Joe Pike (PI buddies) series. Three of his books are standalone mystery thrillers, including this one, "Hostage". As the title implies, after a convenience store robbery goes bad and turns into a murder, the three idiot thugs hide in an expensive suburban house, taking the dad and two kids hostage in the process. The plot thickens considerably when it turns out the father is a accountant for the mob, harboring tons of illicit cash and two sets of books that reveal all about the criminals for whom he toils right there in the house.

Enter Jeff Talley, a former SWAT team negotiator with a troubled past who now just wants to be police chief in a quiet little suburb. This case turns out to be a living nightmare to say the least; frankly, much of the suspense in this book follows from his own anguish as the case takes an awful turn when his own family is threatened by mobsters, who of course don't want their affairs revealed. While the book ends with a somewhat inexplicable set of final killings, the getting there was so filled with tension we could hardly bear to end each reading session. The clever plot thrills for sure, but the alternating narrators of the story - from the cops, to the villains, to the victims - makes for picturing the story for us in graphic detail; at times we're nearly as scared as they are.

Nowhere near as lighthearted as most of the Cole tales, "Hostage" will chill and thrill right to the very end - well done!

Last year I had the opportunity to purchase this book, and of course the writing style in general Crais has surpassed. I'm a huge fan of the movie because not only because Bruce Willis and the entire cast gave a phenomenal performance but the action pack psychological thriller of it engaged me. However, it was the movie that expanded my interest suspense thriller genre for both books and movies. I read Hostage years later after the movie and began to compare many scenes. AND It's true, the book is very different plus with a lot more detailed/graphic scenes. The key plot twists were so intense I could not stop reading. Chief Talley as a fictional character was a man who thought all hope was lost. His past haunted him so much, he did't want a repeat. But he redeemed himself. Despite all his efforts even when his own flesh and blood were in danger, he pushed above and beyond to save both the Smith family and his own. Robert Crais brought each character to life with their own background.
Brothers Kevin and Dennis had their share of family tension growing up, leaving them to become petty criminals. Jennifer and Tommy were bickering siblings, tommy being the little twerp of a brother and Jennifer wanting to live a wild "carefree" lifestyle. But leave it to Marshall Krupcheck to have the most insane childhood of all. Coming from a broken home: never knowing a mother's love, been beaten and burned, severe neglect and history of being disturbing offenses as a teenager all led up to the events of him being a deviant psychopath with a lust for blood and terror.
(I do admit in the movie, I wish there could have MORE visual flashbacks for the main characters rather than just focusing on Talley himself. Because I wanted to see how they all became who they are. Not much was mentioned about Walter's smith's wife only that she was dead). A few of the gut-wrenching scenes Crais detailed were towards the ending centering around Mars and his failed relationship with his mom.
This whole novel embodied the "Showing not telling" Literary device and I love it!. When Crais created Sonny Benza, it gave the novel an L.A Noir vibe. Marshall was the first villain, but Sonny Benza was top gun Talley needed to face. One wrong move Talley made and it was sudden check mate. His life would be completely shattered. Crais included a series of WTF moments that left me with my jaw dropped open. At the time Robert Crais released his novel, I myself was only a little girl. It wasn't until I became an adult and had an interest in psychological thriller that this novel would make my skin crawl. Out of all the novels I had ever read Hostage is one that defines what redemption and justice truly means

In his former life, Jeff Talley was a hostage negotiator. When a case went wrong, and a hostaged child murdered, Talley blames himself and has a complete breakdown. He retreats to a bedroom community to serve as sheriff and abandons his old life--including his wife and daughter.

When three locals punks rob a store and shoot the owner, they run straight to Talley's corner of the world, much to his horror. Panicking, the three find a house to hide in, taking the occupants hostage. They couldn't have picked a worse house as the owner is an accountant for the Mob. Talley is thrust into the role of negotiator once more, although he fights it all the way.

While this story had all the plot points going for it, I just didn't enjoy it at all. Jeff Talley seemed like a very static character to me and very whiny. I so disliked him that I just couldn't identify with any of his decisions. I was yearning for someone else (anyone else) in the book to take over and tell the story. Because the writing was stellar, I am willing to give Robert Crais another try but I hope never to meet Jeff Talley again.

When Robert Crais writes a book as good as HOSTAGE, I can almost forgive him for making me and his other fans wait two very long years for the next "Elvis Cole/Joe Pike" novel. Remember, I said almost. HOSTAGE is the story of Jeff Talley (think Bruce Willis!), a former LAPD SWAT negotiator who quit his job and left his family due to serious stress, burnout, and guilt over a hostage negotiation that turned bad. He's now the Chief of Police of Bristo Camino, a small California community where life is simpler and the job less demanding. At least it is, until two young hoods and a deadly psychopath rob a minimart and kill its owner. In a futile attempt to escape the police, the three criminals jump the wall of a housing development and invade the home of Walter Smith, taking him and his two children hostage. Talley and his people, along with the help of the California Highway Patrol, surround the house; and, for the most part, things run smoothly. Talley uses his skills as a former hostage negotiator to keep the criminals inside the house calm, biding his time until the L.A. County Sheriff's SWAT team arrive to take over. When they do and Talley signs off control of the situation, his troubles aren't ending. No way. What he thought was a bad day is going to swiftly turn into a nightmare that will push him right to the edge. You see, Walter Smith isn't an ordinary family man. He's the accountant for the West Coast mob and has two computer disks in his home office, loaded with information that can literally bring the criminal organization down to its knees. Mob honcho, Sonny Benza, has no intention of letting the local police or even the FBI get possession of these incriminating disks. He quickly brings in a team of killers to kidnap Talley's wife and daughter, and then tells our reluctant hero to get those disks one way or another, if he wants to see his family alive again. Talley is caught between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to turn and the odds are stacked heavily against him. He wants to save his family, as well as the hostages inside the house, but he may not be able to do both. It's going to be a hard decision to make, not to mention a long night, but the worse is still yet to come! HOSTAGE is an adrenaline surge that will have the heart pounding and the blood racing, clearly illustrating why Robert Crais is considered the MAN. He's able to create true-to-life characters that breathe with authenticity...characters that could very well be your next-door neighbor or the person you work with. He then puts these normal, everyday people in a "do or die" situation, juices up the stress to the point where a massive stroke is imminent, and waits patiently for the ground to fall out from under them to see what happens. As expected, the quality of Mr. Crais' writing is high and cuts to the very bone with its razor-edge sharpness and terse dialogue. The chapters are brief, tense, and to the point; yet, paced in such a manner that the reader may feel as if he's speeding straight into a head-on collision. This is what action-packed, suspense writing is all about, and this is an author who hits the mark every time out. When a writer like Robert Crais is in top form, nothing else comes even close to the kind rush you get from one of his novels. Buy the book, read it, then prepared for the movie that's in the making, staring Bruce Willis as a cop who's once again in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After first seeing the film, THEN reading the book, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

About 75% of the two are the same...basic plot, basic characters, certain plot twists, etc.

However, the parts that were DIFFERENT were spectacularly so, and kept me up quite late reading this exceptionally well told thriller. Briefly, a burned-out hostage negotiator retires to a small suburban community and gets himself involved in a hostage situation. Things get immeasurably worse. Period.

Realize that that's like saying "Die Hard" is a movie about a burned-out cop who encounters terrorists at a Christmas party. "Hostage" gets deliciously convoluted before the final page.

Having been introduced to Crais via "Demolition Angel", and not his previous series books, I only expected some sort of good suspense novel.

Which I got...in spades. This sucker crackles with spiffy plot twists and near-hard-boiled dialogue.

Before I go on, there is one specific scene in the film which blows the doors off its' mate in the book. Without spoiling, it's the scene where the hero, Talley, discovers what the "bad guys" are holding against him.

It's interesting in the book...it's shocking in the film.

The book, on the other hand, is allowed to expand on some of the less-central roles...or more properly said, the film pares down (by necessity) the book's peripheral characters.

I was fascinated by "Mars", one of the three hostage takers. What a creepy guy. Seriously. Crais created three-dimensional characters out of the remaining two amateur kidnappers, but this third one is an epic monster.

Seeing the movie, I bet the actor playing Mars read this book. He infuses his character with the sickness and menace that is vividly depicted in the novel. He let the backstory come out. And you WILL want to know his "backstory". It's a corker.

The hero figure, Talley, is again a flawed but noble police officer facing impossible odds that get worse with every turned page. The writing is good enough that there is no sense of perfunctory danger...when things go bad, it feels real and not contrived.

There is also more development of the more sinister set of "bad guys"...the ones who are NOT the kidnappers...and the ending of the book is TOTALLY different than the film.

Reading the book and seeing the film made me appreciate both of them more.

That doesn't happen too often.

This one-off novel was my first Robert Crais read, and I was not disappointed. It reads like an action movie, unfolding at a rapid pace with ever-increasing tension. I haven't seen the movie adaptation, but I know that it received tepid reviews - well shame on the filmmakers, because they apparently really bungled a ready-to-shoot story.

After fleeing their botched convenience store robbery, a trio of perpatrators hole up in a nearby affluent neighborhood, holding a family captive inside their home. They soon discover that the house is built on a foundation of secrets, culminating in a hidden fortune in cash. But as the danger in their random selection of hideouts becomes apparent to them, they begin to disagree on how to proceed: one wants to get away clean with the money, another wants to cut their losses and surrender, while the last becomes more and more bent on driving the situation to a violent standoff with authorities. Enter former LAPD hostage negotiator Jeff Talley, who had retired to the life of a small town sheriff after a tragic standoff ended his first career years ago. Forced back into his specialty, Talley must stay smart and resolute to unravel the mysteries surrounding the cash, the family, the robbers, and hidden dangers, even as the stakes are pushed to an unthinkably personal limit for him.

The book drafts a blueprint for suspenseful action, solving one mystery while adding another while bringing the tension to higher and higher levels. Crais's writing is smooth and easily digested, making for a quick, effortless read. He uses restraint when plotting twists, planting just the right amount of mistrust and uncertainty on all sides to keep the reader off-balance without straining credibility. He also does a good job of injecting emotion into his characters and using it to realistically drive their decisions, a dimension missing from many lesser action novels. Finally, Crais also avoids the lure of using heavy-handed mayhem or profanity for shock value; there are certainly some intense sequences, but nothing that smacks of purposeless titillation.

"Hostage" is a great, quick read - perfect for a trip or a few days at the beach. Crais has a great suspense mystery to tell and is very adept at telling it. This book is also a great way to sample Crais's writing before jumping into his Elvis Cole series of detective fiction.