Danger Zone [Mass Market Paperback]

Shirley Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

A woman is placed in the witness protection program, where she is able to rebuild a life with a new husband and young son. But when her son is kidnapped, she's forced to leave her husband and reenter the danger zone--the world of betrayal and corruption she left behind--to save her son and the life she has built for herself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The kidnapping of a four-year-old boy opens up a Pandora's box of secrets in Danger Zone, a snappy thriller by Shirley Palmer (A Veiled Journey). Hours after four-year-old Jimmy Cady is snatched from his New Orleans home, his mother disappears, leaving a cryptic note warning her husband, Sam, not to follow her. Sam, a former helicopter pilot for the New Orleans police department, tracks her anyway and discovers that his wife has been running from a dangerous past, which has finally caught up with her. Their paths converge on New York City, where an old Mafia capo, an Irish gangster and the FBI get involved in the action. Revelations come fast and furious, and Palmer's characters are solidly crafted and sympathetic.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A first-rate, nailbiting . . . debut thriller . . ." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Admirably paced and plotted, with the kind of gun-a-poppin' denouement that begs for transfer to the big screen." -- Kirkus Reviews

"With the novel's headlong pace . . . getting there is more than half the fun." -- Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mira; Reprint edition (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551667207
• ISBN-13: 978-1551667201
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,945,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fast paced suspense thriller, October 1, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Danger Zone (Hardcover)

All their neighbors and friends know that Sam and Maggie Cady share a loving relationship raising their four year old son Jimmy together in New Orleans. However, their idyllic world ends when someone kills their dog and abducts Jimmy. The police and Sam, a former New Orleans cop, are clueless, but Maggie knows she must go back alone to the hell she left behind in New York City to save the life of her son.

Maggie stops at a New York cemetery to look at two plots about six years old. The stones remind her of the deadly meeting between her Bellini kin and Michael O'Malley's Irish gang that led to the deaths of her father and brother and Michael's brothers. She knows she must confront Michael while praying that her son does not share the violent death of his grandfather and that Sam stays out of this though in her heart she knows he is tracking her.

Does the plot seem a stretch? Probably most rationale people will say yes because this story line is not based on the recent headlines of child abductions. However, readers will not care because through her cast Shirley Palmer makes the improbable seem genuine. This suspense thriller never slows down until the final page. Though the tale is loaded with action, it is the behavior of Maggie and Sam who hook the audience in such a deep ways fans will want to be active Good Samaritans entering the DANGER ZONE rather than passive observers.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild!, September 24, 2002

By 

Huntress Reviews (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danger Zone (Hardcover)

FBI man Sam Cady is used to bullets and danger, but not in his own home, yet that is where he finds them when his son is suddenly taken from there, and his wife Maggie disappears, presumably in pursuit of their child. He has to go find her, but had no idea what he would be walking into.

Sam instantly becomes a hunted man, falsely accused of multiple murders with every lawman in the country looking for him. Using old allies, he begins a search that reveals he did not know his wife at all. Maggie was nothing but a facade, created by his own people.

Meanwhile, Maggie herself has gone home. Her past has caught up with her, and she must now deal with rival mobsters to save her son and clear her husband. Although her entire family is supposedly dead, she must find her father as the price of her son's life. Dodging the FBI, gangsters, and her never quite dead feelings for her first lover, now a priest, Maggie races time to save those she loves. One slip could kill her husband, her son, or her father.

***** Thrilling from the first to the last, this novel will hold you riveted, even though the romance is light. So much goes on, that it is nearly impossible to review it without giving away too much. At points, the violence is graphic, but handled well. Fans of La Femme Nikita, Alias, and other such dramas will read this one again and again. The characters are complex, not easily summed up and pigeonholed in a few words. If you want excitement, read this book. *****

Reviewed by Amanda Killgore.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Palmer Was in the Zone When She Wrote This!, June 4, 2005

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Danger Zone (Mass Market Paperback)

I'd never heard of Shirley Palmer before I picked up this novel but I'll definitely be checking out her other work after reading this great book. If you like Harlan Coben, Brad Meltzer, Joseph Finder and other of authors like this then you'll love Danger Zone. Honestly once you turn page one you won't be able to stop turning the rest until you've turned the last one.

In Danger Zone ex cop Sam now flies helicopters for a living and in his fifth year of marriage with a three year old son, a house in a culdesac and a dog he seems to have the perfect life. This illusion however is shattered one morning when his house is shot up, his dog slaughtered and his son kidnapped. Hours later his wife disappears and his ex police colleagues tell him she was seen making a phone call from a phone box when she was supposed to be in church. It soon becomes apparent everything Sam thought he knew about his wife's pre marital life was a lie and he doesn't know his wife at all. His son is in grave danger, as is his wife and it also becomes apparent he will have to find her if he has any hope of finding his son before its too late.