Cruel Mother

Rating:
Summary: Enforced bonding time.
Review: Meg Halloran is less than pleased when her policeman boyfriend Vince announces that he's bringing his troubled 16-year old niece Cass on their long-awaited romantic vacation. Her grumpiness turns to fear as she and Cass are kidnapped. They struggle to keep their kidnappers happy while trying to understand who is responsible. Was it an act of Cass' troubling boyfriend? Was it an enemy of Vince's from one of his cases? Was it something else altogether that sparks the kidnapping?

The characters in the novel are reasonably interesting and the story itself is well-written. The book suffers a bit from the two plots (that of the kidnappers and the kidnappees) and LaPierre's inability to bring the two together in a realistic way. As a reader, you can see the idea behind the book, but it doesn't work terribly well as a book.

Still, promising enough to keep an eye out for other books by the same author.