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A Maiden's Grave (1995)
A school bus carrying eight deaf school-girls and their teachers brakes suddenly on a flat Kansas highway. They should never have stopped. Waiting for them are three heartless men just escaped from prison
— each with nothing to lose. And now, with the girls as their hostages, they have everything to gain. They make their stand in an abandoned slaughterhouse, and it is there that Lou Handy, a murderer and
the convicts' ringleader, announces his terms: to kill one captive an hour unless his demands are met.
What follows is a twelve-hour siege of noose-tight tension — and a war of nerves between
Handy and the FBI's senior hostage negotiator, Arthur Potter.
Reviews:
"If gobbling a book in one sitting is any reliable indicator, then "A Maiden's Grave" was a screaming hit with
this bleary-eyed reader." – The New York Times Book Review
"Deaver brilliantly conveys the tensions and deceit of hostage negotiations; he also proves a champion of the deaf, offering
poetic insight into their world. Throughout, heartbreakingly real characters keep the wildly swerving plot from going off-track, even during the multiple-whammy twists that bring the novel, Deaver's best
to date, to its spectacular finish." – Publishers Weekly
"A topnotch thriller with an unexpected kicker at the end." – Library Journal
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