Threshold

Ford (Chump Change) turns the traditional cops vs. robbers conflict on its head in this well-written thriller set in a nameless city. Grace Pressman has the ability to bring patients in comas back to the world of the conscious. Her mother, Eve Pressman, runs the Women’s Transitional Center, a haven for battered women that’s willing to flout the law for the safety of women and their children. The center’s most recent rescued family is Cassie Royster and her school-age daughters, Tessa and Maddy. The girls’ father, Edwin Royster, a city councilman with enough clout to have sealed the court testimony of his daughters’ detailed description of their abuse at his hands, thinks the center helped them disappear. Royster wants Det. Sgt. Mickey Dolan to locate Tessa and Maddy, but Dolan is unwilling to return them to an abuser like Royster. Ford skillfully balances portraits of the players while painting in gray the blurry lines between duty and morality. [em]Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency. (Apr.) [/em]