Running Out of Time (1999)
Movie
Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when...
Digital Fortress
6.6
Rate It
Book
"A new master of smart thrills". (People magazine). Susan Fletcher has been summoned to the one of...
Fascination (1979)
8.0
Rate It
Movie
A runaway criminal breaks into an eerie chateau, taking it's two frightened chambermaids hostage. As...
Argo (2012)
8.1
Rate It
Movie Watch
Based on true events, Argo chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans,...
A Spark Of Light
8.0
Rate It
Book
The Center for women's reproductive health offers a last chance at hope - but nobody ends up there...
thought provoking hostage situation
Hazel (1853 KP) rated Hostage Three in Books
Dec 17, 2018
<i>Hostage Three</i> is the second literary thriller by Carnegie Shortlisted Nick Lake. I must admit that I was a little apprehensive about reading this book after having read Lake’s first literary thriller, <i>In Darkness</i>, which, although well written, was rather hard going and, at times, boring. However I really enjoyed <i>Hostage Three</i>. Maybe it helped having a narrator I could relate to more, or maybe it was because the narrative was not shared between two major different time periods as <i>In Darkness</i> was. Whatever the reason, it was good.
The narrative jumps straight in to something happening in 2008 on the coast of Eyl, Puntland, Somalia. Seventeen-year-old Amy Fields is on a yacht, there are pirates; it appears someone is about to be killed. End of part one. What has happened? What is going to happen? Begin part two, three and a half months earlier. From this moment on Amy narrates what has happened in the lead up to the initial insight given and what happened afterwards. The reader learns more about Amy, her father and his wife, Sarah, who Amy constantly refers to as ‘the stepmother’, which gives an indication of their tense relationship. Throughout the book there are also flashbacks to what happened to Amy’s real mother, a sufferer of severe OCD, and the events that caused Amy to become the rebellious teenager she is portrayed as at the beginning of the novel.
Amy and her family end up travelling the world on a private yacht only to get taken hostage by pirates in the Indian Ocean. To begin with it is clear that the Fields family and yacht crew are the goodies and the pirates the baddies, however Amy begins to develop a complicated, secret relationship with one of the pirates, Farouz. The reader discovers the pirates’ motives, well at least Farouz’s motives, behind the hostage situation. Things begin to look less black and white, less good versus bad. And everything, of course, becomes more complex once romance is thrown into the mix.
<i>Hostage Three</i> is well worth a read. Lake writes really well and keeps the reader engaged. It is as if Amy is talking to the reader the entire time. Once you get used to the unconventional use of punctuation (no speech marks) it will become fast paced and you will be torn between wanting to read it all in one go and wanting to slow down to prevent it from ending too soon!
The Negotiation (2018)
Movie
An ace crisis negotiator faces off against a cold-blooded hostage taker. Over the course of 21...