never listIn a tense psychological thriller, Koethi Zan, author of The Never List explores the ordeals of four women, forced into captivity by a madman who keeps girls in chains and makes them endure unspeakable things in captivity.

The stories of Sarah, Christine, Tracy and Jennifer in captivity reveal what some of the trauma must have felt like that the women in Cleveland who were released recently experienced.  The four girls are at the center of this hell hole and the man who has them captured is an academic star by day and a sadistic fanatic by night.

The book begins telling about Sarah and Jennifer’s Never List, a cautionary list of things they should do to keep themselves safe.  But all the preparation is for naught when one night they get into what they believe is a cab one evening after a college party and are abducted.

The story is told from Sarah’s perspective. She escapes after three harrowing years in captivity and the story is told from her perspective 10 years later. I was driven to keep turning the pages to see how Sarah escaped, how the possible parole of their torturer drives her to reunite with her prisoners, and how a much bigger plot at the center of the story unfolds.

With a chance for her captor’s parole upcoming, Sarah generates courage she did not know she had to bring her fellow captors together to keep him in jail.  The creepy set of letters he writes to each one of them provides them with clues, but also leads them to danger.  The action has enough twists and turns to please fans who love to read Jeffery Deaver, and while not for the skittish, Zan delves deeply into the mind of the captured and what each will do to survive.

The Never List has some flaws that I do not need to delve into because readers will constantly be surprised by the twists in store for them as they progress through what is sure-to-be-talked-about summer suspense and who listens to every piece of advice seasoned detectives give us, anyway?