CAPTIVE GIRL THRILLERS....FLASHLIGHT IN HAND, THE BQ BRAVELY DESCENDS INTO THIS DARKEST OF GENRES!

GOOD AS GONE by Amy Gentry falls into the ever growing pile of kidnapped-and-enslaved-women thrillers inspired by the horrific ordeals of Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard and the three similarly victimized women in Cleveland. While Emma Donaghue's Room set a high literary bar for fictionalizing this story, mystery/suspense writers, sly devils that they are, don't hesitate to embrace all manner of lurid plot opportunities these atrocities provide. Not content to simply connect the true-crime dots, you can expect these authors to upend their captive girl thrillers with uniquely perverse curveballs.  Gentry's book works from a standard blueprint......the return of a now grown young woman to her astounded, overjoyed family many years after her childhood abduction. BUT.....and this is the big ole 'but' that keeps us riveted.....is Julie Whitaker really the Whitaker family's long lost child or a scheming imposter who's inserted herself into a family she never belonged to?  You don't think I'm going to spill it, do you?  Briskly paced and deftly plotted, one of the better efforts in this strange sub-genre. We'll say.....3 stars.

DEAR AMY by Helen Callaghan throws in all the proper ingredients for a 'damaged-abductee-versus-her-vile-enslaver tale, but keeps the story at a maddening slow simmer. A Brit schoolteacher, survivor of a well hidden drug-addicted, psycho-ward adolescence, moonlights as an advice columnist for a local paper. After a teen girl at her school goes missing, the teacher's tentative hold on normality goes further off the rails when her column receives desperate, pleading letters from a supposedly long dead girl, presumed abducted and murdered over 15 years ago. A compelling enough premise....and yes, the author serves up her BIG TWIST about halfway in. But the pacing just about murders this book....it moves slower than an oil painting. After dawdling around through mounds of mind numbing description, Callaghan finally applies the defibrillator paddles to her plot somewhere in the last 20 pages or so.....by that time, you may have decided to give up before the book jolts back to life.. A decently satisfying and brutal wrap up....but be forewarned, it's a bit of a slog to get there. Sorry, BQ can only come up with 1 1/2 stars.......if it snags a movie deal, a film version might improve it.