One Kick, by Chelsea Cain

Chelsea Cain. One Kick. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. 306 pages. ISBN 9781476749758.

Author Chelsea Cain has had a successful run with her Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thriller series. With One Kick, Ms. Cain introduces a series heroine who will be sure to attract new readers. Kick Lannigan was kidnapped at the age of six and found again five years later. She's gone through years of therapy but what's helped her most is her study of martial arts and other self-defense programs. At 21 Kick is recruited by a man named Bishop who's trying to find another missing child. He thinks the same people behind Kick's kidnapping are behind this new set of kidnappings, and he believes that Kick holds clues to their location. Reluctantly, Kick is drawn into the search for the missing children in a fast-moving thriller that keeps the reader glued to the pages of the book.

While I have no doubt that this is the beginning of a successful new series for Ms. Cain, the characters seemed cartoonish to me, a little like caricatures of themselves. It reminded me of characters that are based on comic books, rather than on characters developed in a novel. The book seems a little rushed. Perhaps in Ms. Cain's efforts to create a fast-reading thriller with high stakes, she neglected some of the character development that would have given this book a little more substance. Nevertheless, I found One Kick intriguing and it left me wanting to learn more of the story, which is sure to continue over many more volumes.