Publisher's Weekly Review
In British author Hancock's stunning debut, a psychological thriller set over less than a week, a respectable married woman kidnaps a 15-year-old boy and holds him captive in her historic Thames-side London house. When Jez Mahfoud, a friend's nephew, comes to borrow her husband's rare Tim Buckley record album, memories of an intense teenage relationship with a boy named Seb overwhelm Sonia, a voice teacher. She drugs the innocent Jez and locks him in a soundproof room. As the search for the missing Jez intensifies, so does Sonia's compulsion to keep him hidden, especially during a visit from her family. The disturbed narrator persuades herself that this drugged boy, often bound with duct tape, is a willing participant. Despite Sonia's twisted actions and her sensual feelings about Jez, Hancock is careful to show that she's not a sexual predator. Descriptions of the putrid waters of the Thames add to the gothic atmosphere. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory and Company. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A middle-aged woman imprisons a teenage boy in Hancock's spooky debut. When daughter Kit departs for University, Sonia expects empty nest syndrome, but not intrusive memories of her adolescent encounters with a charismatic, seemingly homeless boy named Seb. Sonia is being nagged by her absentee neurologist husband, Greg, and her aging mother, to sell her beloved childhood and current residence, River House, overlooking a seedy stretch of the Thames in London. In short, conditions are ripe for a meltdown, and when golden boy Jez, her best friend Helen's 15-year-old nephew, comes over to borrow a vintage vinyl album, Sonia gets him drunk on the wine she was saving for her daughter's 21st birthday (the novel is rich in such choice details) and, almost on a whim, locks him in the River House music room. The point of view alternates between Sonia's first-person voice and Helen's third-person narration, as Jez's disappearance is chronicled day by day. Unlike a more seasoned sociopath, who might target a victim no one will miss, Sonia has selected the son of Helen's sister, Maria, a helicopter mother. Arriving from Paris, Maria blames Helen for not keeping any closer tabs on houseguest Jez (in London to interview for admission to music schools) than she does on her own teenage sons. Helen is frantic to keep the police from learning that, on the day Jez disappeared, she was in a pub nursing a hangover rather than at work, and she's also increasingly distressed at the enthusiasm with which husband Mick is consoling his anguished sister-in-law. Hancock gradually unveils the sinister parallels between Sonia's tortured infatuation with Seb and her obsession with Jez and creates enough sympathy for both Helen and Sonia that, despite the fact that one is a criminal and the other is criminally negligent, we root for both. Unfortunately the secret at the novel's core is one the first-person narrator could have revealed all along, but doesn't, making the ending seem contrived.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Driven by memories of Seb, the first boy she loved, 43-year-old Sonia is so captivated by 15-year-old Jez that she wants to keep him. When the boy, a talented guitarist and the nephew of her friend Helen, stops by Sonia's house on the bank of the Thames to borrow a CD, Sonia uses drugs and bindings to ensconce him in her upstairs music room. The return of her traveling husband and a visit from her university student daughter cause her to relocate Jez in the garage, as the police search for him intensifies, and Helen, having become a suspect, seeks Sonia's help. No good can come of this, as is clear from the start, and foreboding increases as Jez's health worsens, Helen's entreaties become more frantic, and the full story of Seb is at last, shockingly, revealed. This invites comparison to John Fowles' The Collector, but Hancock gives her narrator, Sonia, a more complex motive, crafting a narrative that grows darker as its level of tension builds. An accomplished first novel that lingers in memory.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2010 Booklist
