The Abductor takes place in a quiet California beach town. In the eerie opening, a substitute teacher is standing on an elementary school playground when she hears a man whispering “Marion” from the bushes. He quickly takes off, but his message is puzzling. The teacher's own name is Marion, and one of her students is also named Marion. She reports the incident to the principal, and he dismisses it (different era).
Hitchens then welcomes the reader into three households, very distinctive from each other. The first is the Trent family, who have a daughter named Marilyn. This family has some weird security quirks, appearing overprotective of their daughter. They consistently ask about her whereabouts, if she has spoken to any strangers, and if she has anything odd happening at school. It is immediately clear that the Trents are running from someone. This is reinforced when a man calls their home and declares he has dialed the wrong number. This sets off panic alarms for the family as they contemplate where to move next.
The second unusual household is that of the substitute teacher, Marion Kennick. After her minor investigation into the puzzling school whispering, she dresses up and hits the town's jukejoints despite having a man in her bed at home. Is she married? Living with a boyfriend? What's his story?
The third home is that of Mrs. Charles, an alcoholic widow who spends her day at the nearby bar. Her motherhood is the opposite of the Trent family – often, she has no idea where her daughter Marion is. Further, she tends to write off her own daughter in an effort to please her wealthy boyfriend. He sees Marion as an obstacle.
All of these households and family members spiral into oblivion when an abductor captures both Marions – little Marion Charles and her substitute teacher Marion Kennick. He takes them both to an abandoned hotel. This scene was very disturbing as the tormentor questions whether to murder them both or use them as fodder in his grand scheme of torturing the Trents. In one of the most clever setups, the abductor actually meant to capture Marilyn Trent in a revenge plot against the Trent family. However, a misprint in a newspaper article had Marilyn Trent's name listed incorrectly as “Marion”. So this strange kidnapping takes place – the abductor captures the wrong kid and torments parents who know their child is perfectly safe. But they have to play along to rescue the kid. Brilliant!
The Abductor is an absolute masterpiece. The setup, characters, locale, and eerie nature of this kidnapping gone wrong were perfectly penned by Hitchens. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for this novel to come to fruition. I became confused at times with the character names being similar, but I completely understood that this was necessary. The name snafu is such a pertinent portion of the plot and surely required a great deal of patience on the author's part to keep this plot tight and suspenseful. Additionally, this was a bold undertaking for Hitchens, writing a disturbing novel about child abduction. I'm sure even as late as the 1960s, the subject was a bit taboo.
There are some unsettling scenes with the phone calls that reminded me of John Farris's excellent 1967 novel When Michael Calls. As I mentioned, the abandoned hotel locale was fitting as well as the author's description of thick fog that permeates the air, draping the entire town in a bleak blanket of “unknown”. There's no doubt that writers like Hitchens helped propel the 1970s and 1980s suspense market, that hotbed of bestseller lists ruled by the likes of Mary Higgins Clark.
For all of the above reasons, you should be reading The Abductor next. Highest recommendation. You can get the book HERE.
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