RANSOM by Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel's writing style can drive you to distraction, but the woman is brilliant when it comes to formulating plots. She proves it once again with her latest novel RANSOM. This book combines romance with suspense and keeps the reader glad he/she is a Steel fan.
Fernanda Barnes is a widow and a very loyal one at that. She is protective of her husband's image even after he commits suicide and leaves her virtually destitute. She keeps his actions a secret from her three children and from the world at large. To outsiders she still looks very wealthy, and that is how she wants it to look.
Soon enough she will have to admit to their children that they are penniless. She is looking for employment but hasn't found a job as yet. She also knows she will have to sell their home but hasn't found a buyer. Her previous life of luxury, which she never sought nor wanted, is falling down all around her.
Peter Morgan's life has also fallen apart. He started out as a bright, energetic young man who was on his way to the top. He married well and had two darling daughters. Then drugs entered his life and he spiraled downward. He eventually ended up in prison, but now he has been released.
Unable to find a job, he seeks out an old acquaintance who makes him a proposition. He will pay him handsomely if he will kidnap the Barnes children and collect a huge ransom. He then tells Morgan if he doesn't do it he will kill his two children. Morgan has no choice but to put the kidnapping plan into action.
In this way Steel sets up a fascinating plot question. What can an almost destitute woman do when her children are kidnapped? Giving a solution to that quandary makes up the core of her story.
The problem with Steel's writing is her tendency to repeat certain statements over and over ad infinitum. She doesn't repeat them verbatim, she just changes the structure of the sentence or moves her thoughts around to look like a different perspective on a point. But it is all the same thought. It can drive the reader crazy.
I don't know if this is just an idiosyncrasy of Steel's or if she does it to pad the pages of her story. Whatever the reason, I wish she would stop. It is maddening. Still her inventiveness with her plots always lures me back to read her latest novel.
RANSOM is a good read, even though it is filled with the repetitions of Steel's writing style. It is romantic and suspenseful, plus it involves the reader emotionally from start to finish. It goes in Steel's plus column, which is where most of her stories are listed.
RANSOM is published by Dell Books. It contains 336 pages and sells for $26.95.