The 37th Hour by
Jodi Compton
hbk out February 04
Published by Hodder
at £10
There was a red wrapper round my copy of this that said, '…as good as Harlan
Coben or your money back!' Now there was a challenge. This book had a lot to live
up to already, and the cover wasn't even opened.
The title comes from the theory that you have 36 hours to find a missing
person. For Detective Sarah Pribek, the 37th hour has begun. Her job with the
Hennepin County Sherrif's Department, Minnesota, revolves around tracing missing
persons, and she's soon throwing herself into it Literally. She tracks down a young
runaway to a bridge over the Mississippi, and when the girl jumps, so does Pribek.
She's that sort of woman. But her strength of character is soon tested when she finds
her husband, Mike Shiloh, is missing. He was supposed to be starting his FBI training
at Quantico, but never turned up. Pribek had missed his supposed departure because
she had been held up visiting her former cop partner Genevieve Brown. Genevieve
had come apart when her only daughter had been raped and murdered, and the
perpetrator, Royce 'Shorty' Stewart, had got off on a technicality. Now Pribek was
going through the trauma of loss too. Except she didn't even know if Mike was dead
yet, even though all her cop senses told her he would be.
With a series of flash-backs and cross-cuts to other incidents from the lives of
those around her, Sarah Pribek begins to learn more and more about her husband's
life. Information about his family, and his behaviour that she had been unable to
extract from this reticent man who was her husband, now comes to light. And its not
all what she wants to hear. But none of it seems to help her to discover quite why he
disappeared on that fateful day. Until the apparently unrelated facts coalesce into a
jarring conclusion that turns Pribek's ideas on their head.
The author gradually unfolds the present and the pasts of the key characters
through a series of brilliant revelations. Each scene overlaps the previous one, though
the connections between them are not at all obvious until the end. And then there's a
further twist that will take your breath away.
Did I ask for my money back as per the offer on the wrapper? Of course not.
This is an absorbing study of the inner workings of family life and relationships, all
wrapped up in the trappings of a powerful thriller. You won't ask for your money
back, either. I promise you - or your money back!
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
The 37th Hour by
Jodi Compton
