When O. Henry wrote the short story “The Ransom of Red Chief,” he found humor in the idea of a kidnapped boy so obnoxious that his kidnappers actually paid the boy’s parents to take him back. There’s a whiff of that classic plot in Shannon Kirk’s Method 15/33, where a man abducts a pregnant 16-year-old—but without the humor. Nor should there be. The kidnapper works for a particularly nasty baby mill. As soon as his captive gives birth, her baby will be sold, and, like numerous pregnant victims before her, the teen will be killed. What Method 15/33 has in common with O. Henry’s groundbreaking book is that this particular captive is a sociopathic genius who, from the moment she is abducted, draws up a plan to kill her captor as painfully as possible. Ordinarily, such a cold-blooded protagonist would make an iffy heroine, but not here. In Kirk’s flat-out brilliant thriller, the girl’s vengeful voice is leavened in alternate chapters by the warmer voice of Roger Liu, the FBI agent determined to save her. It also helps that we know from the start that the girl escapes (the book is her memoir, written 17 years later). How smart is this girl? She writes, “After my day in the attic, I already had enough assets to kill my captor five times over.” Included in those assets is a red blanket, some string, an elastic band, a plastic bag, and a cup of water. In the book’s eye-popping climax, we learn exactly how lethal those everyday items can be. Believe me, you’ll never look at a cup of water in the same way again. How vengeful is she? After her abductor winks at her, she writes, “If I get the chance, I will cut your eyes out for that gesture. I’ll laminate your pupils in resin and carry them on a keychain.” She’s not kidding. Method 15/33 takes us to some very dark places, and at times, we can’t help but wonder whose soul is the darker—the captor’s or the captive’s. But stick around. In the book’s last chapter, the darkness lifts and a light illuminates everything, both past and present. Then you’ll reread the book to see what else you got wrong.