February 23, 2015
In Gold Dagger Award–winner Wilson’s less than successful sequel to 2013’s Capital Punishment, 17-year-old Amy Boxer leaves a note for her parents
at her local London police station announcing that she’s bored with her life and leaving home (“you will never find me”). Ironically, both her parents, who are estranged from each other, are missing-persons professionals: Det. Insp. Mercy Danquah is with a special kidnap unit, and Charles Boxer is a freelance kidnap consultant. Mercy and Boxer regard her message as a dare, but are frantic to find her safe and sound. Improbably, with Amy’s whereabouts still a mystery, Mercy is allowed back
at work and assigned to a sensitive case involving the abducted son of a former member of the FSB, who was investigating a friend’s poisoning with polonium. Wilson throws a couple of
curveballs into the plot, but some feel gimmicky, and the ending will strike some readers as a cheat. Agent: Anthony Sheil, Aitken Alexander Associates (U.K.).
Starred review from March 15, 2015
The second crime novel in the "Charles Boxer" series (after Capital Punishment) finds Boxer, a kidnapping consultant, once again working with his ex-partner, DI Mercy Danquah of the Kidnap and Special Investigations Unit in London. This time the stakes are personal. Amy, their runaway 17-year-old daughter, is convinced she's managed her escape so well that they will never find her. While Boxer pursues a lead that takes him to a dismembered body in Madrid and, by novel's end, into the hands of a violent drug lord, Mercy buries herself in police work, determined to save ten-year-old Sasha Bobkov, kidnaped by Russian thugs with ties to the FSB (the Russian successor to the Soviet KGB). Will Boxer have to sacrifice his own life to save both children or is he already too late? VERDICT Perhaps best known for his "Javier Falcon" series (A Small Death in Lisbon was a Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger winner) along with other award-winning crime novels, Wilson is at the top of his form in this beautifully crafted thriller, with gripping cliff-hangers, great villains, superb suspense, a spectacular twist, and characters portrayed with startling psychological depth.--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2015
In Wilson's riveting thriller Capital Punishment (2013), Charles Boxer's willful teenage daughter, Amy, was furious with him. This time, Amy has transferred her fury to her mother. Amy disappears and leaves her mother, Mercy, a note that ends with a sentence that is the book's title. Although estranged, Charles and Mercy pool their considerable expertise in kidnappingMercy is a detective in the London Met's kidnap squad, and Charles is a private kidnap consultantto locate Amy. But even as they begin, Amy has fallen into the hands of a brutal Colombian drug dealer. Charles heads for Madrid, but Mercy must continue the police hunt for the kidnapped son of a former Russian spy. Both plotlines hold the reader's interest, but it is Amy's storyand the terror, anguish, and desperation of Charles and Mercythat makes the novel utterly haunting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)