Hostage (novel)

"Hostage" is a 2001 thriller novel by Robert Crais, set in Bristo Bay, California, about a small town police chief named Jeff Talley with memories of a failed hostage situation, who must negotiate the same type of situation in his own town if he wants his own family to live. The novel was adapted to film in 2005.

Plot

The story begins when three young boys rob a minimart and the salesclerk is killed. Police chase the boys and they end up taking a family hostage. The house taken hostage was owned by Sonny Benza, a man who rules over the West Coast's most powerful Mafia empire. Sonny has his men kidnap the small town's police chief, Jeff Talley's, family. Talley goes to the location where his family is being held. A man named Marion Clewes executes Benza and his associates for their failure because Marion's employer in New York feels that Benza had betrayed the trust of Marion's employer by failing to retrieve some discs that could shut down Benza's organization and put Benza away for good. The police obtain one of the discs. Rather than killing Talley and his family, Marion lets them live.