Shady Cross by James Hankins

Stokes is not a good guy, but he'd claim he was not the worst.  Sure, he couldn't hack the nine to five world and had made his living as a petty crook.  He walked out on his wife and baby daughter.  Maybe he made his living as a while as an enforcer for the big boss in Shady Cross.  Maybe he had even gotten in some scuffles that resulted in hospitalizations or funeral homes.

Stokes can't believe his luck when, after a wreck (that he may have caused, but who's ever sure about things like that?) he discovers the other driver dead but a backpack full of money in his car.  Thousands upon thousands of dollars and who could use it more than Stokes?  He could get out of town and make a new life for himself.

But then he answers the guy's cell phone.  On the other end is a little girl crying and saying, "Daddy, are you bringing the money?  They say I can come home if you bring them the money."  What should he do?  On the one hand, a chance for a new life for himself; on the other a chance to save a little girl he'd never met. 

James Hankins sets up this scenario as the introduction to one of the most thrilling, fast-paced novels I've read in months.  The reader is repulsed by Stokes, but on the other hand, as the book unfolds, can't help but to start pulling for him.  Stokes encounters twists and turns and defeat on every front as he races the clock to the kidnappers' deadline.  The reader is pulled along on the nerve-wracking ride, unsure how Stokes will handle each new obstacle.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.