Book Title: THE KIDNAPPING OF ALICE INGOLD
Character Name: Catherine Newhouse Ingold
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Fortunate is the most accurate term to describe my childhood. That’s somewhat due to the derivation of the word itself. Fortunate comes from the Latin fortunatus, meaning prospered or lucky. Generations earlier, my family had prospered and the rest of us were lucky to be the beneficiaries of their success. I grew up aware that the adult role for which I was being groomed wasn’t to employ my talents or pursue my personal idea of happiness but to identify people who would return the investment of my time and assets. I was a hedge fund of one, charged with correctly identifying an individual whose addition to our family would augment its status. Given my main directive, I capitalized on my purpose quite well. And that made me feel valuable—if not exactly loved or fortunate.
What was your greatest talent?
I once thought of myself as a writer, but I never gave the craft the necessary attention needed to succeed with it. I’m adept at what some might consider soft skills though they’re among the hardest to acquire. Forgiveness, I’m an expert. I’ve turned making excuses for people into an art. I retain the capacity to love in the face of indifference. Above all, I’m a dedicated mother.
Significant other?
I’m married to Brian Ingold, the founder and CEO of Zelos AI, one of the preeminent artificial intelligence companies in the country. I’ve devoted a good part of my life to handling everything at home so he can concentrate on changing the world.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
The flipside of forgiveness is resentment. Though I’ve subordinated my hopes and dreams to support my family, I sometimes feel that they’re not grateful for the sacrifice and that makes me hard on them, particularly on my daughter.
Where do you live?
I live in Marin County. I’d say the town, however we buy our places under a corporate entity for a reason. Privacy at my station is paramount.
Do you have any enemies?
Until my daughter was kidnapped, I never considered myself on anyone’s hit list. Sure, I may rub a socialite or two the wrong way at a party, especially after outbidding them. But, as the steward of my family’s philanthropic efforts, I’ve always felt that people considered themselves rather indebted to me. Not that I want them to feel pressured to be supportive, of course. It’s simply difficult for them not to feel that way given how much my family donates.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
My windows overlook the yacht club and the bay. The water has always promised adventure and possibility for me, a chance to get away. However, since my daughter was kidnapped, I fear its depths. What could that water hold? What and who could it conceal?
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
I have one daughter, Alice Ingold. I know parents are always warned not to live through their children and I haven’t. Though I have dedicated my life to raising her. She’s my greatest gift to the world—beyond anything I could ever donate. I admire who she is, though I don’t always agree with her opinions.
What do you do for a living?
I’m a mother, first and foremost. My job is assuring my daughter’s safety and stability. Her future is my focus. Secondly, I’m in charge of my family’s philanthropic efforts and host several successful charity functions per year that are a coveted ticket, as well as raise a significant amount of funds to help the less fortunate.
Greatest disappointment?
Sometimes life makes you choose between people you love. I haven’t always chosen correctly, prioritizing societal expectations over familial duty. So, in that sense, I guess you could say my greatest disappointment is my prior self.
Greatest source of joy?
My daughter, Alice, is my pride and joy. I admire who she is and feel proud of the sacrifices that I’ve made to help mold her into that person. Seeing her happy brings me joy. Seeing her fulfilled and succeeding is better than achieving my own dreams. I read once that desert spiders consume vitamins and minerals that they then store in their legs. When they give birth, the young feed on the source of these nutrients until the maternal spider can no longer walk. I’ve always thought there was something beautiful in that.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
My charity functions are intensive, and I think all involved would say they’re fun. I like the press coverage that they bring to certain causes that I’ve identified as important.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
When I love someone, I don’t always see their motivations clearly. I make excuses for them. I choose to pick the explanation for their actions that casts their behavior in the best light.
What keeps you awake at night?
Fear for my daughter, that she gets into a car with a drunk driver or walks home late in the wrong neighborhood, that she overdoes it at a party and makes a bad decision with whom to take her home. I also worry about her future, whether she’ll make choices that result in her happiness or even have the opportunity to make such choices.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
My daughter was kidnapped, and her captors are being cagey about what they want. It seems they desire attention, not money. I’m sure the request for money—and lots of it—is in the offing. I fear that something will go wrong while they enjoy the limelight, and I won’t get the chance to save my daughter.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Like all people, I want the opportunity to make a difference in the world, to help those around me thrive and inspire others. My time may have passed. I now hope to give my child that chance.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Whoever said you can have it all was a damn liar. You can have bits of everything. It’s possible to sample the smorgasbord of life, but you can’t have it all. You can’t be the best wife and the best mother. You can’t have the greatest version of your career and give so much of yourself to your loved ones that you propel them to be the greatest versions of themselves. Life is about choices. You choose to extend the maternity leave at the expense of your career. You choose to prioritize your family and enable your husband’s flexibility at the expense of your own meetings. You choose to support your spouse’s absence at the expense of your daughter’s self-esteem and your own pride in hopes that his success becomes your family’s inheritance. We choose. Even those of us born with more fortune than most. We all choose.
THE KIDNAPPING OF ALICE INGOLD by Cate Holahan
A harrowing abduction becomes a tantalizing nationwide game in a twisty and ingenious novel of suspense by a USA Today bestselling author.
Alice Ingold has been kidnapped. Call the police. Alert the media. You can’t play this game without all the pieces.
Beautiful, blond, and immensely privileged, Alice Ingold is the perfect victim for a true-crime obsessed culture—and for a masked duo with a singular purpose. Instead of a demand for ransom, her captors have a riddle, and they’re inviting the entire country to solve it.
No one is more invested in the search than Alice’s parents: Catherine, a socialite with obscene generational wealth, and Brian, a visionary AI tech guru. But while Brian turns to machines to solve the problem, Catherine tries to crowdsource the solution, stopping at nothing to bring her daughter home. And America isn’t just watching the story unfold…it’s playing along. The nationwide scavenger hunt for Alice is on.
As an increasingly desperate Catherine strives to understand each new clue, a complex picture of the crime develops. Soon, everyone will see the kidnapping of Alice Ingold for what it is—and Alice won’t be the only one who will need saving.
Thriller Domestic [ Thomas & Mercer, On Sale: November 1, 2025, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662529764 / ]
Buy THE KIDNAPPING OF ALICE INGOLD: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Walmart.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Cate Holahan
Cate Holahan is a USA Today Bestselling thriller/suspense author and screenwriter. She has six standalone novels and is co-author of the #1 Audible bestselling series Young Rich Widows, its sequel Desperate Deadly Widows, and the planned third and fourth installments, purchased by Audible. Her seventh solo book, The Kidnapping of Alice Ingold, will be published by Thomas & Mercer in September 2025.Her novels have been translated into multiple languages and optioned for television. Her fifth novel, Her Three Lives, was a Good Morning America book club selection and her second book, The Widower’s Wife, was a Kirkus Best Book of 2016. Her third novel, Lies She Told, was a Kirkus Best Book of 2017, as well as a Book of the Month Club Sept. 2017 selection. She’s written two original movies for MarVista Entertainment which have aired on Fox’s Tubi: Deadly Estate (March 2023) and Midnight Hustle (August 2023). She has multiple scripts and a pilot being shopped by production companies, and BET Studios optioned The Widower’s Wife and is developing it for TV. In a former life, she was a tech business journalist and TV producer. She has written for BusinessWeek Magazine, New Jersey’s The Record Newspaper, The Boston Globe, MSN Money and CNBC. A bi-racial Jamaican and Irish American writer, Cate is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, and The Authors Guild. She has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts ’23 and a BA from Princeton University. She lives in Tenafly, NJ, with her husband, two daughters, and two dogs, and spends many a break in Jamaica, where she’s also a citizen.
No Comments
Comments are closed.