Matala
Matala follows a middle-class American college girl on a summer trip throughout Europe. Bored with her life and the regimented structure of her expensive tour, Darcy Allen "escapes" with a Will, an attractive drifter that she meets while shopping in Florence. Soon she and Will's sometime girlfriend, Justine--an older con artist--are floating around Europe, firm to Venice and then Athens and then on to Matala, in Crete.
Darcy is so excited to be around dangerous people and don't conform to her father's image of her friends, that she ignores several warning signs. Is Will and Justine's dark friend, Maurice all that he claims to be? Is she conning them or are Will and Justine looking for more from Darcy than just money?
The Narcissist's Daughter
In the "Narcissist's Daughter," the reader meets a young man from the "wrong side of the tracks," Syd Redding, working as a hospital assistant while he attends medical school. In contrast, his boss is a brilliant and well-to-do doctor whose attractive wife also works at the hospital. They live in a mansion in a ritzy Toledo, Ohio suburb, while Syd lives in a working class neighborhood with more than its share of crime.
When his boss and the family befriend Syd, he finds himself getting more and more involved with the wife and daughter--at first in an innocent way and then in darker, more disturbing ways. Even as he tries to extract himself from the situation, he finds himself drawn to the contrast between the seductive wife and the naive daughter. On a path that will easily cause him to forfeit all that he has worked so hard far, Syd is still unable to walk away. So, too, the reader feels drawn to the end of the novel, all the while doubting the story will end happily.
Holden's writing is compelling in that he makes kidnapping, grand deception, and even murder seem like acts not out of the realm of possibility. Even the victims seem to act in a way that the reader can see himself acting. For that reason and for his terse, "straight-to-the-point" text, Holden's novels are nearly impossible to set down before finishing them.
About Craig Holden
Craig Holden is the author of five novels, beginning with "The Jazz Bird," published in 2002. He currently lives in Michigan.
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