The First Circle

“Hell doesn't burn. It deceives.”

Twenty years after watching cartel gunmen massacre her adoptive parents, Lydia Quinn drifts between a sedated hospital bed and the couch of her psychiatrist, Dr. Lilith Bailey, reliving nightmares that feel more real every time. She is also sole heir to an $18 million trust, which makes her the perfect mark for Mitch, a hospital janitor who recruits a crew of small-time crooks to kidnap her and hold her for ransom. The job should take three days. Instead, the crew starts coming apart, each man confronted by the thing he fears most, and each certain it's real. Something is running this game. And it has all the time in the world.