BUMP IN THE NIGHT

A taut and scary chronicle of the abduction of eight-year-old Jonathan Tierney, who lives in Brooklyn Heights with his alcoholic mother, Martha. She was granted his custody in a rancorous divorce only because father Patrick, a best-selling writer, is often abroad for long periods. One morning, while Martha sleeps in a semi-stupor, Jonathan leaves for a secret meeting with his father. The meeting never happens, and Jonathan fails to show up at his small private school. Tension mounts as Detective Sergeant Mooney begins his questioning in the school and the neighborhood; juggles reports of a stranger in the area; and slowly begins to find links to a child-porn operation. Meanwhile, Jonathan, small but resourceful, fights off his captor--while Martha struggles against her craving for a drink. There are helpers and hinderers along the path to Jonathan's deliverance--all of them deftly explored in a crisply economical style that improves greatly on the author's previous work (A Lover Scorned, etc.). Swift-paced, convincing, and absorbing--a small gem of suspense.