A harrowing novel that straps readers into the passenger seat of a dangerous, rocky ride.
Monday is barely underway, but White Sands Pay-n-Save has already seen its share of insignificant yet interconnected events. Mattie loved her job at the South Florida Aquarium, but procrastination led to a crushing loss. Now she’s stuck refilling slushy machines and training socially clumsy new hires at a neglected convenience store in central Florida. It’s Calvin’s first day on the job at Pay-n-Save and Mattie is comfortable showing him how to restock the shelves, but how can she prepare him to deal with a mugger pointing a gun at his head? In the midst of the robbery, a customer calls on Mattie for help with a different situation. The eighteen-year-old, Lucía, has been abducted and nothing good awaits her down the road. There is little information other than the distinct van driven by the muscle-bound kidnapper, but Mattie has resolved not to hesitate when circumstances call for action. With Calvin in tow, she jumps in her car to find the girl. Deliberate and practical, Jack Clark is the private investigator hired to find Lucía. He pulls into the gas station just as Mattie heads out. He might be the opposite of Mattie in many ways, but their paths intersect at Pay-n-Save and now they’re both in perilous pursuit of a girl who unknowingly holds the key to the world’s peace in a mysterious tattoo on her body.
Get ready for a caravan of chaos in T.O. Paine’s high-stakes thrill ride, The Crisis. Seemingly random events coalesce like storm clouds on a quickly approaching horizon, and this engaging cast can barely keep ahead of what’s brewing. Jack is a complex man, one whose past mistakes hold sway over his choices. Though the circumstances are dire, Calvin brings light humor to the story with his effortless charm and is an endearing boy audiences will adore. Lucía and Mattie make choices you wish they wouldn’t, yet you can’t help but imagine you’d do the same in their situation. The novel features a few determined antagonists, each driven by deep-seated intentions that fuel their depravity. Sometimes, even a single decision has dramatic consequences and each character is brought face-to-face with the haunting results of their choices. But what keeps the pages turning and the suspense building is the unraveling mystery of Lucía’s numeric tattoo, its tie to an old man’s secret, and an international conspiracy. Intertwined fates collide in The Crisis, a harrowing novel that straps readers into the passenger seat of a dangerous, rocky ride.
