High Noon

ISBN: 0399154345
Pub. Date: July 10, 2007

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Wow! I absolutely enjoyed this book! I'd have finished this book sooner, if I wasn't sick and delayed my reading. Anyway, I like the plot, as well as the characters and the suspense behind the story.

Phoebe MacNamara is the top hostage negotiator with the Savannah Police Department. While trying to prevent a suicidal bartender from jumping off the roof, she gets to know Duncan Swift, who happens to be the bartender's employer and he owns a sports bar. She manages to coax the bartender down from the roof, and after this incident Duncan can't seem to stop thinking about her. Phoebe, on the other hand isn't so sure about their relationship, since she has left her ex-husband some years ago and is very happy with her young daughter and her agoraphobic mother whom they have survived from her ex-lover who had broke into their house and terrorized them when she was younger. Till now, Phoebe's mom doesn't dare to step out from her house. It was partly this incident that Phoebe decides to become a hostage negotiator, taking after Dave, who was the negotiator then and is now her mentor/superior.

Then, someone assaults her in the police station by putting a hood over her head and humiliates her. Subsequently, she starts to receive a mutilated doll and dead animals at her doorstep. Thinking it is a subordinate she had had an issue with, she confronts him but later finds out that someone other than her subordinate is watching her every moment closely. She soon learns he is out to get revenge, and she intends to stop him before he succeeds in getting what he wants.

I was really hooked to the story from the beginning to its ending. Nora Roberts succeeds in creating a great suspense and holding it and never let go. There were times I was impatient and couldn't wait to find out what happened next. And another thing is, I like everything about the hero, Duncan. He is such a sweet and understanding man, that at times I wish he is real. High Noon is definitely a keeper for me.