Jeff Talley was a good husband, a fine father, and a front line negotiator with LAPD's SWAT unit. But the high-stress, unforgiving job took an irreparable toll on his psyche. Unable to talk down a despondent father before he murders his wife and son and takes his own life, Talley plummets into a downward spiral. His marriage ends, he resigns from SWAT, and he struggles to escape from his former life by taking the chief-of-police job in a sleepy, affluent bedroom community far from the chaos and crime of Los Angeles.

But Talley’s pursuit of peaceful small town life is about to change when three young men, fleeing the robbery of a mini-mart, invade an expansive home, and take the family hostage. Plunged back into the high-pressure world that he has desperately been trying to put behind him, Talley's nightmare has only just begun. This just isn't any house--it belongs to a man who launders money for the modern equivalent of La Cosa Nostra, and the records contained in his home could put L.A.’s most dangerous crime lord, Sonny Benza, behind bars. As Talley desperately tries to save the innocents inside, the full weight of Benza’s power descends on him, putting Talley and his own family at risk. Soon, all involved are held hostage by the exigencies of fate and the only one capable of diffusing the crisis is the least stable of them all.

EXCLUSIVE! Listen to excerpts from HOSTAGE, read by Robert Crais! Click here.