Detour : A Novel

From Publishers Weekly
Siegel's acclaimed debut, 2001's Epitaph, was eclipsed by last year's electrifying thriller Derailed (to be a feature film starring Jennifer Aniston), which reached bestseller lists and marked Siegel as an author with serious chops. It's no surprise that Siegel's third novel offers yet another exhilarating ride, albeit not quite up to the bar set by Derailed. The premise is terrific. Paul and Joanna Breibard, childless Manhattan professionals, travel to Colombia to adopt a baby, but are kidnapped by left-wing militia who make an offer they can't refuse: Paul must swallow 36 condoms stuffed with cocaine and deliver the contraband to a contact in New Jersey within 18 hours; if he fails, Joanna and the baby will die. But in New Jersey, Paul finds a burned-out shell of a house at the contact's address. For help, he contacts Miles Goldstein, the Orthodox Jewish lawyer who arranged the adoption, and when a further delivery attempt ends in gunplay, Paul and Miles turn to Moshe Skolnick, a Russian mobster; later, a DEA agent steps in. Meanwhile, Joanna is held hostage in a country house whose walls are stained with blood. Siegel keeps tension at a steady high throughout, in part by employing short chapters and paragraphs à la James Patterson. He makes great use of local color, not only of the easily exotic Colombian settings but also of the no less unusual Brooklyn Jewish and Russian enclaves where Paul finds himself. The novel features some smart twists, although a key one will be spotted by veteran thriller readers from the first page of its setup. Overall, this is first-rate entertainment, not quite as fresh as Derailed, but sure to brush bestseller lists as well as become a favorite airplane read both in hardcover and, eventually, mass market. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
After five years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, Joanna and Paul Breidbart fly to South America to adopt a baby girl; after spending less than a day there, however, Paul is convinced that Colombia "wasn't Third World as much as fourth dimension." Then things go seriously wrong. Their Colombian nurse and chauffeur, provided by the adoption agency, kidnap the couple and their baby and deliver them to a revolutionary cartel. Paul is told that the only way to free his wife and daughter is to smuggle $2 million worth of cocaine into the U.S. His attempt to deliver the goods, however, is sabotaged, and after losing the drugs and the money, he must scramble to come up with an alternate plan. The familiar formula--ordinary man (Paul is an actuary) forced to deal with a nightmarish scenario--is given plenty of twists by the inventive Siegel (Derailed, 2003). Crisp prose, a breakneck pace, a surprisingly tart sense of humor, and some pointed social commentary give this thriller a good deal of bite. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
DESCRIPTION: From the bestselling author of Derailed comes the adrenaline-charged story of one man who must be-tray everything he believes in to save his family. Paul and Joanna desperately want to have children, but their failure to conceive almost ends their marriage. Instead, they decide to adopt and arrange a trip to Colombia to bring home a baby girl. Joelle is everything they've hoped for. To help them ease into parenthood, a nanny has been sent. When they return one night, they discover to their horror that the baby waiting for them isn't Joelle. Suddenly, they're taken prisoner and handed an ultimatum: Either Paul transports millions in cocaine to a location in the US within l8 hours, or his wife and daughter will be killed. The decision seems obvious--yet the outcome will be anything but.


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A pair of American innocents ignore their friends' warnings about traveling to Colombia to pick up an adoptive baby. Complications ensue. Paul and Joanna Breidbart have it all except a family of their own. Their salaries-he's an actuary, she works in human relations-have given them a comfortable life in New York but no hope of conceiving a child. Unwilling to endure the long wait they'll have for a baby from Korea or eastern Europe, they jet to Bogota, the mountainous capital of a land torn by drug battles and civil strife. At first everything seems to go smoothly. Their driver, Pablo Loraizo, is an old hand who obviously knows what he's doing; Mar'a Consuelo, the coolly professional director of the Santa Regina Orfanato, duly approves their application for parenthood; and Joelle, the adorable little girl chosen for them, even comes with Galina, her own nurse, who's considerably better at parenting than the novice couple. And then Galina doesn't seem like such a paragon after all. She doesn't want to put Joelle down on her back the way the textbooks say you should, and she takes her out one day without telling Paul and Joanna. Her infractions are the first ominous sign that something's very wrong-something that won't stop till the happy couple have been kidnapped and separated, and Paul's on his way back home carrying a fortune in drugs in a most uncomfortable place. As in Derailed (2003), Siegel shows all the ingenuity of Hitchcock in leading his clueless heroes gently into nightmare, and if once more he's considerably less convincing when they start to fight their way out, exhausted readers will be grateful for every ounce of their spunk and unlikely skill. A thriller that explodes withthe energy of a high-velocity bullet, even if it does lose both power and accuracy toward the end of its amazing trajectory. Agent: Richard Pine/Inkwell Management. Film rights to Paramount, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura to produce


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