Every Fear is the second of Arthur Ellis Award-winner Rick Mofina’s novels to feature Seattle Mirror reporter Jason Wade. Wade works the crime beat and is under perpetually heavy pressure from his editor to scoop the competition.

The premise of Every Fear is not original: a child is abducted, a baby in this case, and the mother is critically injured in her attempt to stop the abductors. The husband becomes the first suspect, and suspicions about him intensify when his fingerprints are found near the scene of a murder that may be related to the abduction.

Wade’s connection at the Seattle police is Homicide Detective Grace Garner. She’s a year or two older, and there is some obvious attraction between them, but they have a major case to deal with while they try to figure out if they can trust each other.

Mofina’s writing is lean and workmanlike. While he may lack the poetry of a James Lee Burke, he gives the novel a tight structure: the action spans only six days. Seattle is the setting, but it serves as background only – this is a plot-driven novel, fuelled by dialogue.

Given the short timeframe, the fact of a baby’s life hanging in the balance, and the knowledge that the children who are abducted by strangers are usually killed within hours of the abduction, there’s more than enough suspense here to keep the reader flipping pages long into the night. Mofina switches the point of view back and forth between Wade and Garner as they race the clock and each other for more information. Almost a third of the way through the novel, Mofina begins giving us the perspective of the kidnappers – people you wouldn’t want anywhere near a baby – which ratchets up the tension even more.

This is the perfect beach read but, since that season has passed us by, it would work equally well on a chill autumn evening in a comfortable chair by the fire.