At age 18, Lila was drugged and raped by an unknown assailant. Now 26, she's a young prosecutor suddenly sitting across the aisle from the man who may have committed the crime in a deadly cat-and-mouse thriller, The Stolen Hours by Allen Eskens (Nothing More Dangerous).
Someone spikes Lila Nash's drink with gamma-hydroxybutyrate, aka GHB, a date-rape drug. The teenager wakes up naked and alone in the backseat of a car. Lila knows she was raped, but has no memory of who did it. Nude pictures of her are circulated among her classmates, and even her best friend shuns her. Lila spirals into self-destructive behavior. A therapist helps her cope with trauma enough to make it through college and then law school, but her first big case as a junior prosecutor triggers memories of her assault when she comes face to face with Gavin Spencer. Gavin is charged with the rape and attempted murder of a woman named Sadie Vauk. Suddenly Lila realizes that the way Sadie was attacked mirrors the way Lila was assaulted. But Gavin is both smart and wealthy enough to attempt to have both Sadie and Lila killed before either woman can prove their story in court.
The killer rapist character, Gavin Spencer, is astonishingly brilliant and never leaves any forensic evidence that would connect him to his crimes. The Stolen Hours is a nail-biting read, as Lila desperately tries to stay on the right side of the law while making sure Gavin never again gets away with his crimes. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer