01745cam a2200277 4500 425431712 TxAuBib 20010830120000.0 010523s2001||||||||||||||||||||||||und|u 2001032577 9780385495851 0385495854 (OCoLC)47050452 TxAuBib Crais, Robert. Hostage / by Robert Crais. 1st edition. New York, New York : Doubleday Books, 2001. 373 p ; 25 cm. An ex-con with delusions of grandeur and his tagalong brother unwittingly team up with a psychopath one wrong word away from meltdown. When their late afternoon joyride turns into a random act of violence, they take a family hostage in the affluent bedroom community of Bristo Camino. Enter Chief of Police Jeff Talley, a stressed-out former LAPD SWAT negotiator who is hiding from his past. Plunged back into the high-pressure world that he desperately wants to forget, Talley soon learns that his nightmare has only begun. The hostages are not who they seem, and the home contains secrets that even L.A.’s most lethal and volatile crime lord, Sonny Benza, fears. As Talley tries to hold himself together and save the people inside, the full weight of Benza’s wrath descends on him, putting the police chief and his own family at risk. Soon, all involved are held hostage by the exigencies of fate and the only one capable of diffusing the standoff is the least stable of them all. 20010830. Los Angeles (Calif.) Police Department. Murder Fiction. Mystery fiction. gsafd TXGID