Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

Overview

New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box's novels have been called "red hot,"* "edge-of-your-seat read[s],"† and "unforgettable, powerful."‡ Now he delivers a novel that will steal your sleep as much as it will wrench your heart. It's a novel about something that could be anyone's worst nightmare. . . .

Jack and Melissa McGuane have spent years trying to have a baby. Finally their dream has come true with the adoption of their daughter, Angelina. But nine months after bringing her home, they receive a devastating phone call from the adoption agency: Angelina's birth father, a teenager, never signed away his parental rights, and he wants her back. Worse, his father, a powerful Denver judge, wants him to own up to this responsibility and will use every advantage his position of power affords him to make sure it happens. When Jack and Melissa attempt to handle the situation rationally by meeting face-to-face with the father and son, it is immediately apparent that there's something sinister about both of them and that love for Angelina is not the motivation for their actions.

As Angelina's safety hangs in the balance, Jack and Melissa will stop at nothing to protect their child. A horrifying game of intimidation and double crosses begins that quickly becomes a death spiral where absolutely no one is safe.

Editorial Reviews

Bestseller Box (Blue Heaven) explores an adoptive parent's worst nightmare in this compelling stand-alone thriller. Jack McGuane, an employee of Denver's convention and visitors bureau, and his wife suddenly discover that demonic Garrett Morland, the birth father of their dearly loved nine-month-old daughter, Angelina, didn't sign away his parental rights. Garrett and his powerful father, a sitting federal judge, give the McGuanes three weeks to return Angelina. In this bleak scenario, Box eschews facile sentimentality and meticulously builds pitch-perfect characterizations, notably that of McGuane, who grew up with uneducated but hard-working parents on a series of Montana ranches. Box's equally convincing villains-gangsters, murderers, child pornographers-each provide a different face of evil, and each individual has to decide how best to get at the truth. As usual, Box blessedly reasserts that whatever the cost, such truth exists, and ordinary folk have the strength to find it. Author tour. (Jan.)

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Author Information

Bio of C.J. Box

C.J. Box is the author of eight novels including the award-winning Joe Pickett series. He's the winner of the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and an Edgar Award and L.A. Times Book Prize finalist. Open Season was a 2001 New York Times Notable Book. Box lives with his family outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Customer Reviews

• It was awful.

  Posted June 17, 2009 by Tim White, Saratoga, Wyomin

  I am a fan of Box and like most of his books, but this one was awful. Couldn't get through it.

Additional Info

Imprint

St. Martin's Press

Filesize

1.69 MB

Number of Pages

352

eBook ISBN

9781429989107