This is the story of Eliza, who has two kids and a good husband and a place for herself in the world, quiet and unassuming; she also has a history she would like to keep quiet. At age 15 she was abducted by a serial killer -- she was not chosen by him, an important point to keep in mind; she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For the time Eliza is Walter's captive, they drive endless circles through Virginia and talk. This part of the story is told in flashback, and it is remarkable for its clarity and finesse.

This is the story of Walter, during the six weeks he holds Eliza captive and also in the last days of his life, twenty years later, on death row.

Evil is a word that is overused; most of the awful stuff that happens in the world is more like this: mundane in the details. Not boring, mind you. Walter's mind and reasoning, his view of the world, these are subtle and because of that, all the more disturbing.

The characterizations are masterfully done. A woman who has fought her way back to a normal life after an experience that would break many; a man who has spent twenty years both acknowledging his crimes and rationalizing them.

There is not a lot of plot here: Eliza's abduction, the psychological play that Walter uses to bind her to hi; the uncomplicated rescue, the trial, and then twenty years later, the events leading up to Walter's execution by lethal injection.

With such fraught material most authors would have strayed into the melodramatic, but Lippman has characters to look after and she spends no time trying to put the horrific into easily accessible terms.

I will be thinking about this novel for a long time to come.