PAULA GOSLING – The Zero Trap. Coward McCann, hardcover, 1980. Warner Books, paperback, 1981. Published earlier in the UK by Macmillan, hardcover, 1979.

   Paula Gosling’s first novel, Fair Game, won critical acclaim and the 1978 John Creasey Award in England. In this, her second novel, she creates an elegant psychological thriller involving a hijacked military aircraft.

   On a routine flight, the plane’s nine passengers are gassed into unconsciousness. They awaken in a luxurious, isolated house stocked with the necessities for survival, and comfortable survival at that. Though they arc not guarded, they cannot leave the house, because it is surrounded by snow and hone-cracking cold. And they have no idea where they arc or why they are there.

   These captives of cold are a diverse group. Laura Ainslie is the daughter of a U.S. Army general. Frank Dcning is a federal marshal escorting accused murderer Joe Hallick to trial. There are also a sexpot entertainer who disturbs male libidos, an antagonistic army sergeant, and an outwardly mild astronomer, David Skinner, who turns out to be the toughest of the lot and becomes romantically involved with Laura Ainslee.

   Obviously the unseen kidnappers want one or more of the captives for a reason. But which of the captives? And why? The bewildered hostages (and the reader) try to figure it all out as tension and isolation fray nerves and create friction.

   This neatly plotted novel is full of convolutions as the hostages’ plight becomes increasingly serious and the cfforts to identify the extortionists keep falling short. In the confines of the house, anger, romance, fear, and lust cause problems that arc almost as dire a threat to survival as are the mysterious captors.

   There arc plenty of plausible and fairly clued surprises, and finally everything is resolved in a twist on a twist.

   Among Gosling’s other novels arc Solo Blues (1981). The Woman in Red (1984), and The Monkey Puzzle (1985).

———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.