Just Finished Reading: The Method by Shannon Kirk (FP: 2015) [326pp] 

It was a very lucrative enterprise. Low risk and very high reward. They would be alerted to the target and, at the appropriate moment, swoop in and snatch them. A month or so later the baby and the financial reward would arrive. Of course, it was highly illegal. Nothing that produced such a fantastic return could be anything approaching legal. Kidnapping, child trafficking, murder – not something to get the stamp of approval from the authorities. The victims were teenage girls stupid enough to get pregnant whilst still at school, the babies were the product and desperate wannabe rich parents the customers. Easy money. After all the soon-to-be mothers could hardly put up much of a fight, right? All true, until they made the mistake of abducting 16-year-old Lisa Yyland. Lisa is whip-smart, she’s been trained in self-defence by her father and she’s definitely not a sociopath - her mother had her tested. But she is a very determined, very focused and very capable young woman. Her kidnappers and the people who have paid for her unborn child have just made the biggest mistake of their lives. 

As usual with such things I picked this up on spec because of the unusual premise. I’m always on the lookout for unusual takes on the standard crime novel and this was certainly that! Most often you find that ‘crime’ equals murder and that murder usually revolves around men killing women – at least it feels that way. This was quite different in that it’s told primarily from the victim’s point of view (along with an FBI agent investigating the kidnappings) and although women are the targets of the crime the fact that they are (young) women isn’t the primary reason they end up dead. The character of Lisa is an interesting one. For most of the novel she remains *just* on the right side of being a Mary Sue [A Mary Sue is a type of fictional character, usually a young woman, who is portrayed as unrealistically free of weaknesses. Originating in fan fiction, a Mary Sue is often an author's idealized self-insertion. Mary Sue stories are often written by adolescent authors.] Lisa crosses that line, IMO at least, in the last few sections and became far less interesting at that point. Although a bit slow in places there’s a few nice twists of the plot and the occasional surprise to keep you guessing a little bit. Most of the secondary characterisation is better than average and the whole thing has a nice cinematic ‘feel’ to it. The tension levels are kept pretty high at times and over all handled well. There’s some nice snappy dialogue and, apart from the last few chapters – post incident - not much that made me lose the suspension of disbelief. Whilst not exactly great literature its certainly entertaining enough for a few days' light crime reading. There are a few moderately gross moments so if you’re easily disturbed by such things, it might be an idea to skip this. A reasonable above average read.