What hostage negotiators have to go through when lives are on the line and every second counts.

On Christmas Eve, Detective Alex Cross receives an urgent phone call--a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family.

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center -- a women's reproductive health services clinic -- its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage. After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with...

"A pair of desperate parents. A man on the run. A rookie cop. Four people with everything on the line. What will be left in the ashes of the next 24 hours? Following their daughter's mysterious disappearance, Ryan and Elsie Delaney have taken the LAPD forensic lab hostage, and have given law enforcement an ultimatum: Find their daughter, Tilly, or they will destroy all the evidence they can find to other cold cases. Detective Charlie Hoskins has been...

"On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, 'The party starts!' This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis--and media circus--that would mesmerize the country, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden's most notorious outlaw to the...

"Twas the night before Christmas, and dozens of rich, influential hostages are trapped inside a sprawling lakefront mansion in New Orleans. The perp? Detective Reed Ware, model cop turned outlaw. After receiving a panicked call from Hollis "Holly" Bayard, a teenage street tough with a penchant for amateur sleuthing who stumbles upon the scene of a drug-deal-turned- murder, Ware finds his and his friend's lives in dire danger. The crime Holly witnessed...