The Treatment by Mo Hayder

by:  Mo Hayder
published by:  Doubleday
publish date:  2002

Midsummer, and in an unassuming house on a quiet residential street on the edge of Brockwell Park in south London, a husband and wife are discovered. Badly dehydrated, they've been bound and beaten, the husband is close to death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing.

When DI Jack Caffery of the Met's AMIT squad is called in to investigate, the similarities to events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime with the necessary detachment. And as Jack digs deeper, as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both the past and the present, the real nightmare begins...

This is the 2nd book in the DI Jack Caffery series.  It was a really good 2nd book.  Usually they're just kinda eh, but this one was mindblowing.  

Basically, a wife and husband are found beaten and dehydrated.  They tell the police that a man has held them captive for days and he has kidnapped their son.  Their son is found dead in the park, but more disturbingly, he was alive just hours before police found him.  While the police are focusing their resources on figuring out that crime, another family has been taken captive.  The book tells of their fight to stay alive despite time running out.  

A parallel story in this book is the story of DI Caffery's younger brother and Jack's undending search for him.  New evidence comes to light and that story line takes an unbelievable and heartbreaking turn. 

Both story lines had me on the edge of my seat.  They were tense and well timed.  Reading the first book might help with a little bit of the back story with Jack's younger brother, but it's not necessary.  It had been like 3 years since I read the first book and this book had enough information that I was able to follow along easily enough.  I would highly recommend this book for the mystery/thriller lovers out there.