24 Hours by Greg Iles

This book is also an old (that being relative!) book that I found while browsing the Wilbor site. The title refers to the amount of time there is between the kidnapping of a child and the child's safe return to his or her parents. The kidnappers have a great system going and it's been successful f times. When a doctor is away at a convention, two members of the team (Joe and Huey) kidnap the child from the home. Huey ( the large and mentally slow member of the team) takes the child away to a secret location. There he tries to keep the child as happy as he can under the circumstances. As soon as the child is gone Joe approaches the mother and tells her what has happened. Joe has found that he doesn't need to keep his face covered or use a fake name - all he has to do is tell the mother that the kidnapping is all about money and when he receives his money the child will be returned unharmed the next day. And that's all there is to it - oh yeah, there is that part about coming back and killing the child if the parents go to the authorities. Joe's wife Cheryl is the third member of the team. She approaches the father and tells him what is going on. In twenty-four hours Joe makes enough money to live on for the next year.
The reason the book exists is that things don't go as planned this time! This book has characters that I loved, vilains to hate and lots of twists and turns along the way. I enjoyed it very much.