UNDER THE SAND

In Hanafee’s novel, kidnapped brothers face a terrible fate—unless a determined team of amateurs can save them.

In this latest installment of the Leslie Elliott mystery series, the tranquility of Anibonie Island (just off Florida’s Gulf Coast) is shattered by a cannily orchestrated and violent kidnapping plot. Well-heeled brothers Victor and Hugo Clerk are the targets of the criminals; a note demanding $200 million in ransom informs the police that the men will be buried alive until the money is paid. The kidnappers, who include an ex-soldier once convicted of murdering his commanding officer in Afghanistan, destroy the island’s communication network and disable the bridge linking Anibonie to the mainland. Unable to bring in reinforcements, a small and unlikely team of intrepid investigators find themselves in a race against time to rescue the kidnapped brothers from a horrible fate. Among them are public relations expert Leslie Elliott, who recently moved to the island to start a new career as a mystery writer, and her boyfriend, Wes Avery, a newspaper reporter from Chicago who gave up his big-city job to follow Leslie and who now writes for the island’s paper. They are assisted by Alex Pendry, a young, inexperienced sheriff’s deputy; Ray Santiago, a fireman; and the fearless Gene Muller, whose day job is to reduce the island’s increasingly destructive iguana population. The story moves quickly, and the lead characters, Leslie and Wes, are very likable. Their interactions become increasingly desperate as their search for the kidnapped (and possibly buried) brothers reaches a critical and doubtful stage: “Those poor men. I feel like we aren’t doing enough for them,” Leslie tells Wes as the search hits yet another dead end. “Let’s face it, Wes: This little search party of ours is pretty laughable.” But are the kidnappers as clever and determined as their pursuers? Readers will be carried along, fully engaged as the twists and turns of the plot produce unexpected revelations.

A page-turning thriller set on a beautiful Florida island.