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The one thing Johnny, an ordinary suburban husband, did not want was to be involved in trouble, to have the peace of his small world with Alice and their little girl disturbed. It was this that made him walk quickly away when he had not only seen the old man jump in front of a subway train, but had been singled out by this complete stranger for an urgent plea for help. But every step that Johnny took away from the scene actually led him further into involvement, for someone had seen the old man put a key into Johnny's pocket, and a ruthless gang of criminals needed to have that key. Although Johnny tried, there was no way to keep Alice out of it. Alice wanted peace, too -- enough to fight for it, and when their child was kidnapped it was she who took over. Too late now for regrets and "If onlys", too late for the police, too late simply to hand over the key because it had vanished. What they had to do was hunt down the criminals, to search through waterways and inlets of the deserted Jersey Meadows at night, where a boat could lie hidden and no one hear a child's cries. It is a story with pace and action, with a breathtaking chase and a vicious battle at the end of it -- but it is a thoughtful story, too, of a man who trades a citizen's responsibility for immediate peace, who sees himself as less than a hero and, catching that reflection in his wife's eyes, knows that peace is not always the answer. from the dust jacket of the 1963 Doubleday first edition