Piper and her friend Hazel decide to play amateur detectives and look into some of the recent disappearances of teens in their hometown. Most people have written the disappearances off as runaways, but something doesn't seem right to Piper.

Unfortunately, the girls let their guard down a bit too much and go off with Caleb and Owen, two good-looking college students from wealthy and well-respected families who also happen to be sadistic kidnappers. Before they can process what's going on, Piper and Hazel end up trapped in a house with several other kidnapped teens.

Caleb, Owen, and a third person, Matt, randomly select prisoners at various times, sending them to one of six rooms. Five of the rooms contain some form of torture (sound, temperature, light, sleep deprivation, and water), while the sixth one is where two prisoners are forced to fight each other until one has died. All of this is intended for the amusement of Caleb, Owen, and Matt, who are a nasty combination of rich, bored, and horrible.

Somehow, Piper plans to escape (Hazel is firmly in "nah, we're going to die" mode). First, however, she has to survive.

This was my third Natasha Preston book and, for a while, it looked like it might be the best of the bunch. Granted, that's not saying much, but "meh, okay" is better than "terrible." It was low-grade torture porn, but at least the various rooms and the way Caleb and his group expanded their games gave that aspect a bit of variety. I wasn't a fan of the way Piper and Hazel were written as opposites, the one who fought and wouldn't give up vs. the one who curled up into a ball of misery and waited for death. Still, I could deal with it, for the most part.

Evan's introduction to the story was where things started to go downhill. Somehow, Preston managed to work a love triangle into a story about a bunch of kidnapped teens being repeatedly tortured. The whole thing between Piper, Theo, and Evan was tiresome - if I didn't have the energy for that drama, how did any of them?? Combined with the Hazel stuff, it seemed like yet another thing meant to establish that Piper was somehow the most special girl in the bunch.

The last 20 or so pages were a complete mess. It was tough to believe the guys got away with it for as long as they did, but when they truly melted down, all brain cells were vaporized. Also, I am now convinced that Preston has no idea how to end books - this is the third ending, out of three, that has involved a sudden huge development that is just where the story stops.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

read with my grand daughter ( )