"action thriller"

Recently divorced from billionaire Ted Franklin, California State Judge Grace Silva is called by their son's school because their teenage son Lane is being held prisoner at his exclusive Mexican prep school that caters to the ultra wealthy. The ransom demand is simple, cold- blooded killer druglord Hector Rivas Osuna demands that Ted return the millions he stole from him with interest or Lane dies.

While the clock ticks away a frantic and stunned Grace tries to call Ted, but he has vanished. Desperate and knowing that if she handed over the demanded loot her son will probably die anyway as a warning to Ted and others, Grace turns to another former spouse, kidnap specialist Joe Faroe, who no longer does that work ever since a rescue failed to save the victim. However, this case is personal and not just because he was Grace's husband before Ted, but because he also may be Lane's biological father; ergo Joe enters the fray.

This action thriller focusing on a mother's worse nightmare, a dangerous event happening to her offspring, is made fresh by the deep look at the Mexican drug trafficking. The action-packed story line is fast-paced but character driven as fans will feel Grace's fears and anguish as she turns to Joe as her only hope; though he has his troubles too. Elizabeth Lowell provides a terrific tense tale that grips readers from start to finish (set aside plenty of time as this is a one sitting read).

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 18, 2006

Summary

Orphaned at thirteen, Grace Silva clawed her way out of poverty and violence to become one of the most respected judges on the federal bench. Grace believes in the rule of law, lives it, breathes it. She has always been buttoned up and buttoned down.

Except once.

Joe Faroe has learned that laws are made by politicians and politicians are all too human. He believes in the innocents, the ones getting ground up by governments that are too polarized or too corrupt to protect their own citizens. He's been through the political meat grinder himself. It cost him his career, his freedom, and a woman who still haunts him. Since then, Faroe has worked outside the rules and politics of government. He is a kidnap specialist for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based, global business that concentrates on the shadow world where governments can't go. He is good at his work, intelligent, confident, ruthless.

Until a friend dies trying to kill him.

Now Faroe is out of the business. Retired. He's through trying to save a world that doesn't want to be saved.

Then Grace comes to him, past and present collide, and Faroe finds himself sucked back into the shadows, tracking a violent killer who holds the life of Grace's son in his bloody hands.