A DESPERATE CALL (Laura Coburn) - October 9/11

I decided to take a break from an interminable John Updike novel to read this, which I assumed would be a fast-paced kidnapping story. Not so much. Coburn offers up a languid procedural detailing the investigation that ensues after a young boy is kidnapped and murdered. (The murder was unexpected, certainly.) Some of this stuff is kind of interesting, but it just seems to go on and on. By the time the protagonist is hopping on a plane to Hawaii, I'd almost completely checked out. The book admittedly does pick up in its final stretch, but really, the whole thing is about 200 pages longer than necessary. ** out of ****