Eleven days

the long version

In this novel based on the author's own experience, wealthy Leo Del Rio is kidnapped from her car on a Mexico City street. She is blindfolded and held hostage by unknown and unseen captors. As the days pass, Leo applies all of her powers of observation and intuition to a study of the men who guard her. As they bring her meals, light her cigarettes, and lead her from room to room, she relies on conversation, both to learn more about them and to attempt to make them see her as a person. She searches for clues to the gang's motivation and tries to plan her actions in the case of rescue or, her deepest fear as the days go by, abandonment and death. The breathtaking conclusion is both unexpected and completely believable.