DC By the Book

Excerpt: We drove for a good long while, methodically sectioning the sprawling city according to the map, but concentrating most and finally on the north and west. There were beauties to the place one couldn't guess from the tourist round, and miles and hosts of residential streets where Morgan Freemantle could be swallowed without trace. "I wonder if we've actually been past him," Alesia said at one point. Gives one the shivers, not knowing." -- "He might be further out," I said. "But kidnappers don't usually go for deserted farmhouses or places like that. They choose more populated places, where their comings and goings aren't noticeable." ... We were driving up and down some streets near Washington Cathedral, simply admiring the houses for their architecture: large old sprawling houses with frostings of white railings, lived in houses with signs of young families. On every porch, clusters of Halloween pumpkins.

Excerpt: We passed the Ritz Carlton on Massachusetts Avenue and paused there, looking at the peaceful human-scaled hotel with its blue awnings from where Morgan had been so unceremoniously snatched, and then coasted round Dupont Circle and made our way back to the more central part. Much of the city was built in radii from circles, like Paris, which may have made for elegance but was a great recipe for getting lost: we'd chased our tails several times in the course of the day.