First published 2018
Stephen Small owns a Ferrari and lives in luxury with his wife and three sons. Now he lies trapped underground in a coffin-sized box, kidnapped and buried alive while his captors negotiate his ransom. He has forty-eight hours of oxygen before the air runs out. Time slips away as Stephen struggles to survive his claustrophobic prison. Meanwhile, in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, real estate developers Jim and Bonnie Hood visit Camp Nelson Lodge. They plan to purchase the rustic property and transform it into something modern. The local residents despise wealthy outsiders who threaten their traditional lifestyle. When violence erupts, the Hoods learn that some business deals can turn deadly. Both cases reveal how greed drives people to commit terrible crimes, whether for ransom money or to protect their way of life.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: claustrophobic, race-against-time
Setting: California, Sierra Nevada, Camp Nelson Lodge
Period: 21st-century
174 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: kidnapping, violence