Baptism

Starred review from December 9, 2013
Not for the faint of heart, Kinnings’s thriller propels readers into the murk of London’s Underground, where George Wakeham, a claustrophobic subway train driver, confronts Tommy Denning, a psychopathic ex-soldier and religious fanatic, who has trapped Wakeham’s train and its panicking passengers between the Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road stations. Earlier, Denning and a henchman entered Wakeham’s house and took his wife and children hostage. Det. Chief Insp. Ed Mallory, blinded 13 years earlier in only his second negotiating case, has to rely on his ears, his nose, and his hard-won experience to deal with a terrorist more dangerous than any he’s ever faced and an equally sinister plot by the “good guys,” an MI5 operative gone hopelessly rogue and a bureaucrat out for political fame and power. Kinnings (The Fixer) offers keen insights into the psychological ramifications of desperate hostage situations as he ratchets up the tension to near-unbearable levels. Agent: Anthony Topping, Green & Heaton (U.K.).

March 1, 2014
Kinnings' debut is a grueling, minute-by-minute account of the eight hours after a pair of religious fanatics seizes control of a train in the London Underground. Service on the Underground is so often disrupted by unscheduled maintenance or terrorist threats that it's quite a while before the 300-plus passengers realize Northern Line Train 037 has stopped in a tunnel between the Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road stations for entirely different reasons. It's only the driver, George Wakeham, who knows from the beginning that the train has fallen under the control of ex-soldier Tommy Denning, 25, and his twin sister, Belle. But George can't do anything to stop the Dennings or his wife and children will die. Special Branch hostage negotiator DCI Ed Mallory, who's blind, is called in to talk the Dennings out of whatever they have in mind. He finds himself equally hamstrung by Tommy, a homegrown Christian psychopath who's cheerfully implacable about his plans for the hijacked train, and MI5 types like Mark Hooper and his boss, new director general Howard Berriman, who won't give Ed the support to do what he feels he must. When the Dennings pull off a nasty surprise that starts the clock ticking toward the deaths of everyone on the train, Ed realizes his only hope for a happy ending lies in professor Frank Moorcroft, an Underground expert who never met a qualifying clause he didn't like, and Conor Joyce, a former MI5 explosives expert who lost his wife and unborn child to the same Provos who blinded Ed 13 years ago and who's always blamed Ed for their deaths. A greased-lightning thriller that will doubtless make a perfect summer movie--preferably one to sit through on the hottest day of the year.

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December 1, 2013
In this high-adrenaline thriller, a London tube train is taken over by religious zealots who want to die and take everyone with them. Tommy and his sister have big plans to kill everyone on board the train by flooding the tunnel, thus creating the titular baptism. Ed, the lead negotiator, possesses a unique skill set: he is blind but has the ability to detect deep levels of meaning in the timbre of voice, and what he hears when he talks to Tommy is truly frightening. Even without nuance, the facts are bad enough: Tommy is killing anyone who enters the tunnel, and, with the body count soaring, MI5 has pulled back. Ed is convinced that Tommy's religious beliefs are stronger than anything a negotiator could offer, so he's forced to look for another solution. With lots of violence, steadily building tension, and an exciting finale, this one will find eager readers among James Patterson's fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)